2nd Renaissance -15
Lothar | 14.03.2006 08:02 | Analysis | Repression | Social Struggles | London | World
Historically, there have been periods when legal distinctions between animals and humans have been blurred. For instance, in medieval Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries, numerous trials and executions of animals occurred. One source identifies 34 recorded instances of pigs having been tried and cruelly put to death. Besides pigs; rats, chickens, goats, and bees were similarly tried. Some of the pigs were fully dressed in human clothes at the time they were, inevitably, found guilty. In one case a vicar excommunicated a flock of sparrows that infested his church. All this happened despite the theological stance that animals had no soul, and no morals or conscience. They could not really be guilty of transgressing the Rule of Law.
Trials and executions
Natural Rights
The Rabbits And The Wolves [180]
The following parable was written by the great American humorist James Thurber (1894-1961). In his day Thurber aimed his lines at the Nazis, in Germany. As you read this piece consider where he might aim them if he were alive today.
The Rabbits Who Caused All The Trouble
Within the memory of the youngest child there was a family of rabbits who lived near a pack of wolves. The wolves announced that they did not like the way the rabbits were living. (The wolves were crazy about the way they themselves were living, because it was the only way to live.) One night several wolves were killed in an earthquake and this was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that rabbits pound on the ground with their hind legs and cause earthquakes. On another night one of the wolves was killed by a bolt of lightning, The wolves threatened to civilize the rabbits if they didn't behave, and the rabbits decided to run away to a desert island. But the other animals, who lived at a great distance, shamed them saying, "You must stay where you are and be brave. This is no world for escapists. If the wolves attack you, we will come to your aid in all probability." So the rabbits continued to live near the wolves and one day there was a terrible flood which drowned a great many wolves. This was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that carrot-nibblers with long ears cause floods. The wolves descended on the rabbits, for their own good, and imprisoned them in a dark cave, for their own protection.
When nothing was heard about the rabbits for some weeks, the other animals demanded to know what had happened to them. The wolves replied that the rabbits had been eaten and since they had been eaten the affair was a purely internal matter. But the other animals warned that they might possibly unite against the wolves unless some reason was given for the destruction of the rabbits. So the wolves gave them one. "They were trying to escape," said the wolves, "and, as you know this is no world for escapists. "
Challenge Restrictions Of Civil Freedoms - Support Secessions [181]
History should surely record that the greatest impact of the 911 and 1012 attacks was not the loss of life or the resultant prosecution of a perpetual war on terror by the CoW nations. The greatest impact has been the loss of civil freedoms in those countries. The excuse of a War on Terror has been used to wage a war on dissent, and to shore up the faltering control of the Old World Order over a failed economic system.
Understandably, there is great concern about draconian 'terrorist' countermeasures being introduced by the US, British and Australian governments. In the US in particular, these additional powers and controls will be equivalent to those of a police state, and all pretence of democracy will quickly vanish. Ominously, the opposition to the changes is being based on the dominant idea of forcing the Feds to relent, and this is doomed to failure. Unless the citizens of the CoW nations take a different approach their families, their careers, their businesses and their civil freedoms will be subsumed within a fascist state. This is exactly what happened to the people of Germany it 1933.
Hitler seized power from a minority position in government in 1933. He was not elected by a majority of the German people. On 30 January, a mysterious fire burnt down the Reichstag, the German Parliament. The very next day, Hitler acted to deny all guarantees of personal liberty, freedom of speech and the right of assembly. An only moderately intelligent Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was immediately depicted and tried as the perpetrator of a terrorist plot to destabilise the nation, but there were other victims and scapegoats. Communists, Jews, trade unionists, homosexuals, and other innocents, were made the 'enemies' of the German state. One thing led to another, and in due course, 55 million people died in World War II. Today, there is a widespread belief that the Nazis themselves burnt the Reichstag. But no one is left alive to explain what really happened.
February, 1933, was the right time to have left Nazi Germany, with or without personal possessions and funds. For many Germans there was a life and death decision to be made that year, and most got it wrong. They stayed, and they paid the ultimate price. Now is the time to 'leave' the US, Great Britain, and Australia.
But today, 'leaving' does not mean fleeing abroad. The events in Nazi Germany took place in different times. In 2004, there is no need for citizens to physically leave the land of their birth, simply because a totalitarian, fascist regime, makes a grab for power there.
This is so because secession is now a more practical option than it has been at any time in the past. At first, this is an improbable notion to most people. How could it be easy to opt out of a fascist state, when the regime controls everything? The answer lies in the breakdown in the power of traditional control mechanisms, due to a growing abundance of information, scientific knowledge, new technologies and new ideas. Such unprecedented abundance has the capacity to dissolve the long standing power of scarcity and enable free city states and regions to flourish independently of a centrally managed economy.
Legal actions against individuals and groups proposing secession will certainly be taken by the Feds. But, everyone has an intrinsic right to freedom, and, to the extent that new legislation and powers remove or greatly diminishes that right, there is a clear argument for leaving federalism behind. The ability of city states and regions to opt out, and win the moral argument, is a very different situation to one in which individuals are prosecuted for breaching new security laws within a federation.
In the latter circumstance, in the US, individuals could soon be prosecuted for the 'crime' of 'attempting to influence public opinion'. Besides individual citizens who might post comments on the WWW or speak out in public places, the proposed new powers will give the US Feds the 'legal right' to prosecute environmental, human rights, and anti-globalisation groups. Such controls will be highly effective against activists, journalists, academics, and the like. However, they are totally useless against cities and regions that might choose to abandon the US Federal system completely, and go their own way. This is because, in the latter case, the argument is not about 'crimes' within the federal system, but abandonment of it by a defined collective of people.
When a US city or region abandons federalism, the laws made in Washington, and the self-granted powers of the Feds to prosecute 'terrorists', 'witches' and other menaces, become irrelevant. This is also true for Britain and Australia.
The Fed's War On Dissent [182]
As it is used here the term 'Fed' does not refer to that privately owned institution that controls the US currency and financial system, The Federal Reserve. The term is applied to the federal governments of the CoW nations. The nature and failings of the US Federal Reserve are another story, and one that is already told on several sites on the WWW. Here, we are concerned with the efforts of the US, British and Australian Feds to suppress dissent within their borders, in the name of 'protecting' their populations from shadowy terrorists, radical Muslims, and an allegedly drug-crazed Tooth Fairy.
In the US, the original 'Patriot Act' that was passed by the Congress, in 2001, without having been read by members, was draconian enough. The subsequent Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as 'Patriot Act II', went all the way to a complete totalitarian rule by federal authorities. Most protections of the United States Constitution were removed, and the new police state was given powers that are even beyond those seized by Adolf Hitler in 1933.
The real war in the US today is on individual rights. It is a war on dissent. Dissent against the total domination of the federal administration in all matters: civil, military, social, economic, cultural, and religious. More than that, it is a war on free thought, new ideas and truth. If this seems improbable to you, take the time to read the Patriot Acts (I and II), they are available on the WWW. Most of the new provisions in these documents are only superficially aimed at terrorists, their real targets are individual rights and freedoms. The Members of Congress who were asked to pass the first of these acts did so without having any opportunity to read it. There's a war on, you see.
Alternative Rights - Very Different Freedoms [183]
In 2001, the United States of America ceased to be the republic the Founding Fathers intended, and became, instead, a democracy. This is so because Patriot Act I overrode the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution on many points of individual freedom. Patriot Act II converts the US again, this time to a dictatorship and police state. To understand this, one has only to read a few of the explanations that the author and commentator, G. Edward Griffin, gives about the difference between individualists and collectivists, and between republics and democracies.
With admirable clarity of thought, Griffin cuts through the plethora of labels that are used to describe politics and reduces the difference in approaches to citizen's rights to a single question. Where do the rights originate? Individualists believe that such rights are intrinsic, they come with birth. Collectivists believe that the group is more important than its members, and that rights derive from human institutions, from governments and government law making processes. Here are some of the points that Griffin makes about the difference between individualists and collectivists beliefs about rights.
* "First of all I should tell you that, from my observation, collectivists and individualists, for the most part, are good people. They want the best possible for their families, for their countrymen, and for the world - for mankind. They want peace, prosperity, and justice....Where they disagree is how to bring these things about."
*"The collectivists believes the group is the most important element of society; that all solutions to problems are better solved at the group level than at the individual level; and that the larger the problem is, the larger the group should be to solve the problem. And so they believe in collective action....The collectivist sees government as the solution, because government is the ultimate group, and so the collectivist mind can be easily recognised. It always has an affinity to government as the solver of problems. The individualist, by the way, is more sceptical. He tends to look at government as the creator of problems."
*"Collectivist solutions gravitate from local governments to state government, to national government, and finally to world government. If there is a really big problem, such as the environmental issue involving the whole planet, the collectivist is convinced that it cannot be solved except through the action of world government."
*"The collectivist believes that the group is more important than the individual and, if necessary, the individual must be sacrificed for the group. Sometimes that is expressed in terms of 'the greater good for the greater number.' It's a very appealing argument."
*"The individualist on the other hand says. 'Wait a minute. Group?' 'What is group?' That's just a word. You cannot touch a group. You cannot see a group. All you can touch and see are individuals. They make up the group....So the individualist sees that, if you sacrifice the individual for the group, you have made a huge mistake. The individual is the essence of the group. He is the core of the group. The group has no claim to sacrifice its own essence."
*"The view of individualism was expressed clearly in the United States Declaration of Independence, which said: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men.' Nothing could be more clear than that. 'Unalienable Rights' means they are the natural possession of each of us upon birth, not granted by the state. The purpose of government is, not to grant rights, but to secure them and protect them."
*"By contrast, all collectivist political systems embrace the view that rights are granted by the state. That includes the Nazis, Fascists, and Communists. It is also a tenet of the United Nations. Article Four of the UN Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights says: 'The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise that, in the enjoyment of those rights provided by the State....the State may subject such rights only to such limitations as are determined by law.'
The reason this is important is that, if we agree that the state has the power to grant rights, then we must also agree that it has the power to take them away. You cannot have one without the other. Notice the wording of the UN Covenant. After proclaiming that rights are provided by the state, it then says that those rights may be subject to limitations 'as are determined by law.' In other words, the collectivists at the UN presume to grant us our rights and, when they are ready to take them away, all they have to do is pass a law authorising it.
Compare that with the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. It says Congress shall pass no law restricting the rights of freedom of speech, or religion, peaceful assembly, the right to bear arms, and so forth - not except as determined by law, but no law. What a difference there is between individualism and collectivism."
*"The collectivist says you have to force people. That's why he has an affinity to government. Government is the embodiment of legalised force. You can always spot a collectivist because, when he confronts a problem, his first reaction is to say, 'There ought to be a law.' His attitude is that we must force people to do what we think they should do."
*"By contrast, individualists say. 'We also think we are right and others are wrong, but we don't believe in forcing anyone to comply with our will because, if we grant that principle, then others, representing larger groups than our own, can compel us to act as they decree, and we will have lost our freedom."
*"As an individualist, I am not opposed to collective action. Just because I believe in freedom of choice does not mean I have to move my piano alone. It just means that I renounce the right to compel someone to help me. Individualists seek cooperation based on voluntary action, not compulsion.
And so here we have a second distinction between the collectivist and the individualist. The collectivist believes in coercion. The individualist believes in freedom."
Further, Griffin explains, that whereas a republic is designed on individualist principles, with strict limitations on the powers of law makers to impinge on human rights and freedoms, a democracy is built on collectivism, and the state can grant and remove rights as it sees fit.
When the CoW forces invaded Iraq, the senior US Military Commander in the field announced that the aim was to bring the Iraqi people democracy and the rule of law. That was undoubtedly the plan. The US did not, and still does not, wish to see an Islamic Republic replace the regime of Sadam Hussein. It wants a collectivist government that can remove rights by majority vote and enforce its injustice through the rule of law. Here are some of the key distinctions that G. Edward Griffin makes between a democracy and a republic. He says.
"We have been taught to believe that a Democracy is the ideal form of government. Supposedly, that is what was created by the American Constitution. However, if you read the documents of the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution, you find that they spoke very poorly of Democracy. They said in plain English that a Democracy was one of the worst possible forms of government. And so they created what they called a Republic. The bottom line is that the difference between a Democracy and a Republic is the difference between collectivism and individualism."
*"In a pure Democracy, the concept is that the majority shall rule. That's the end of the discussion.....A Republic is simply a limited Democracy, a Democracy with limits on what the group can do, with limits on what the majority can do. Republics are characterised by written constitutions that say the government - even though it represents the majority - shall not do this; the government shall not do that; and it shall be prevented from doing that also. We have individual liberties and rights that stand higher and are more important than the group."
Griffin also crystallises the concept of the political spectrum, which purportedly has 'left' and 'right' orientations, but in reality is only a measure of how much government there is. He says.
*"We often hear about right-wingers versus left-wingers, but what do these terms actually mean? For example we are told that Communists and Socialists are at the extreme Left, and Nazis and Fascists are on the extreme Right. Here we have two powerful ideological forces pitted against each other, and the impression is that somehow, they are opposites. But, what is the difference? They are not opposites at all. They are the same....Communists believe in international Socialism, whereas Nazis advocate national Socialism. Communists promote class hatred and class conflict to motivate the loyalty and blind obedience of their followers, whereas the Nazis use race conflict and race hatred to accomplish the same objective. Other than that, there is absolutely no difference between Communism and Nazism. They are both the epitome of collectivism, and yet we are told they are, supposedly, at opposite ends of the spectrum."
*"There's only one thing that makes sense in constructing a political spectrum and that is to put zero government at one end and 100% at the other. Now we have something we can comprehend. Those who believe in zero government are the anarchists, and those who believe in total government are the totalitarians. With that definition we find that Communism and Nazism are together at the same end. They are both totalitarian concepts. Why? Because they are both based on the model of collectivism. Communism, Nazism, Fascism and Socialism all gravitate toward bigger and bigger government, because that is the logical extension of their common ideology. They cannot help becoming what they are. More government is needed to solve bigger problems, and bigger problems require more government. Once you get on the slippery slope of collectivism, once you accept that ideology, there is no place to stop until you reach all the way to the end of the scale, which is 100% government. Regardless of what name you give it, regardless of how you re-label it to make it seem new or different, collectivism is totalitarianism."
*"We need government, of course, but the concept of what kind of government must be built on individualism, an ideology that pushes always toward that part of the spectrum that involves the least government necessary to make things work instead of collectivism, which always pushes toward the other end of the spectrum for the most amount of government to make things work. "
It is by no means certain that Griffin is right about the last point - the need for some government - but the rest of his analysis and reasoning is sound.
Instead of needing some government to make things work it is possible to have new-tribalism and a Leaver-Giver model instead. Then there need not be any government at all.
This would not have been possible during the 20th century when Communism, Nazism and Fascism were so much in evidence. At that time the new science and technology needed to support a new society and a Level 4 Civilization did not exist. Managing scarcity was the central principle of economics, and governments were the dominant political force in nation states. However, none of those conditions still apply. Now the game is about managing the distribution of the fruits of abundance, to ensure that maximum good is first done in areas where it is most needed - in the poorest places on earth. Free city states and talent collectives are inherently small enough to operate along tribal lines, and there is no need to have any traditional government to fulfil a political function. Surprising as it might seem, we are on the threshold of an age of rampant individualism and world wide peace.
Contrasting Natural and Collectivist Social Orders - [184]
Balance Versus Dominance
The diagram below shows the major differences between the collectivist social order that is associated with takerism and the older, natural, social order of peoples such as the Australian aborigines and the tribes of the Amazon, who successfully followed Leaver principles for tens of thousands of years.
See large pic below
On the left, we see that individual species, humans and others, have inalienable rights. These rights are not granted and they cannot be withdrawn. They stem from the divine order that creates matter, structure, and life.
On the right, there is the concept of human-created collectivism, and bigger and bigger governments, all the way to a global, totalitarian state. The distinguishing feature is that, here, the 'order' in society is made by men, it is not natural. Nor is it divine.
Whereas natural rights, on the left, cover all living things, the artificial rights that are given and taken by nation states, on the right, only apply to humans. The dominant idea is, as Daniel Quinn observes, "Humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community (there's us and there's nature)."
Historically, there have been periods when legal distinctions between animals and humans have been blurred. For instance, in medieval Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries, numerous trials and executions of animals occurred. One source identifies 34 recorded instances of pigs having been tried and cruelly put to death. Besides pigs; rats, chickens, goats, and bees were similarly tried. Some of the pigs were fully dressed in human clothes at the time they were, inevitably, found guilty. In one case a vicar excommunicated a flock of sparrows that infested his church. All this happened despite the theological stance that animals had no soul, and no morals or conscience. They could not really be guilty of transgressing the Rule of Law.
Clearly, there was a period of confusion in the West when remnants of the beliefs (some would say superstitions) of the old, pre-taker, tribal societies existed alongside the new doctrines and dogma of man-made collectivism and religious interpretation. Today the distinction has all been resolved. Even the UN groups that deal with animal matters are clear that animals do not have natural rights. They are merely 'there' to be exploited.
Thus, the Whale Shark, the largest fish in the world, was recently protected by the UN group that monitors trade in endangered species. The UN did this, not because they recognised that the whale sharks have any natural rights, as part of a divine creation, but because some countries, including the Philippines, India, and Britain, argued that these enormous fish are worth more as eco-tourism attractions than as shark fin soup. It was a purely economic decision, the rights of the whale shark did not enter into consideration. This is unsurprising, since the United Nations is a Taker institution that was established by nation states to look after their interests - not those of the animals and plants on this planet.
In a Taker society that is run on collectivist lines - and they all are - the power of life or death rests with the state. In a true tribal society, one that exists with nature on Leaver principles, the power of life or death is in the hands of the natural order of things, as determined by the design of the material world. Social groupings of the human animal, into tribes, live by the rule of reason, obligation, and the rectification of wrongs. Collectivist governments, on the other hand, gravitate to the total dominance of all matters, including the determination of life and death. In the natural world, where human tribes belong, there is balance and reason instead of dominance. Leavers do not 'conquer' the land and annihilate all those who don't happen to agree with them. Takers do exactly that, until they overextend their reach and exhaust the capacity of their economy and their forces.
The Rule of Reason [185]
In his novel, The Story of B, Daniel Quinn outlines the difference between tribal law and what passes for just law-making in collectivist societies. He illustrates his points with an example relating to adultery, a common enough occurrence in every human community. He writes.
*"Tribal laws are never invented laws, they're always received laws. They're never the work of committees of living individuals, they're always the work of social evolution. They're shaped the way a bird's beak is shaped, or a mole's claw - by what works. They never reflect a tribe's concern for what's "right" or "good" or "fair," they simply work - for that particular tribe."
*"Here's how the Alawa of Australia handle adultery...." (The example is quite lengthy. Look it up - on page 314 of the paperback edition, 1997 - if you want to know the details. L )
*"Nothing like invented law, which just spells out crimes and punishments, tribal law is something that works. It works well for all concerned. A man and woman whose love is as great as this must of course have each other. But for the sake of the tribe they must be gone - out of sight, out of mind forever. The children of the tribe have seen with their own eyes that marriage and love are not the trifling matters they have become among "advanced" peoples like us. The husband's dishonour has been avenged - and there will be no snickering among his comrades about it, for they stood side by side with him to lambaste the adulterer."
*"Every part of this process is the law, and every actor in it is a participant in the law. The law for these people isn't a separate statute written in a book. It's the very fabric of their lives - it's what makes the Alawa the Alawa and what distinguishes them from the Mara and the Malanugga-nugga -who have their own ways of handling adultery, which are best for them. It can't possibly be said too often that there is no one right way for people to live, that's only the delusion of the most murderous and destructive culture that history has ever produced."
Quinn makes the point that the emphasis in tribal law is always on correcting the harm done. The Rule of Law that applies in collectivist societies, even before they become totalitarian states, places its emphasis on punishment. Even in cases where courts award damages the compensation is always in a monetary form; loss of an arm is worth so much, damage to reputation is worth so much. The philosophy seems to be that every harm can be expressed as a sum of money, and that there is no need to do anything more than fix the price of the damage.
This simplistic and mechanistic view, is characteristic of materialist cultures. But it is totally foreign to the tribal peoples of the Amazon forests or the Australian wilderness. They have laws that aim to repair feelings and lessen animosities. Their aim is to keep their tribes functional and to maintain respect for the rights of the other creatures and life-forms that share their world. Tribal laws reflect a very different mindset, and a system that is much longer lived and successful than modern approaches to law-making and justice.
Divine Order Versus Secular Structures [186]
The word 'God' in the above diagram refers to the divine order of creation, rather than the concept portrayed in the various interpreted religions of the world. God, in the context of the diagram, is the same as the "Great Spirit" (etc) of pre-taker tribal societies. This is the God of earlier times, not necessarily the God of the sages who wrote the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The diagram simply contrasts the secular structures and man-made order of modern nation states and interpreted religions with the natural order that tribes, flocks, herds, hives, and all other collections of creatures follow.
Every social group has rules of conduct and ways of achieving order. The key difference between the two sides of the diagram is that on the left the rules evolve within what is practical, while on the right the rules are determined by elites. Whether those elites are in religious institutions or state institutions they determine how others in the society should live.
In 'modern' society the parrot people of the media often tend to reinforce the notion that the way the churches and the various layers of government say we should live is the way we were meant to live. This is an implicit message, for as Daniel Quinn notes, we are seldom aware of the paradigm that he terms 'Mother Culture,' even though we live by it all the time.
On the left of the diagram is the natural world where all creatures are free to determine, for themselves, how they live. They do this within the practical bounds set by the divine structure of nature and the cosmos. A bird is designed to fly, so it can migrate from one continent to another without regard for any rules other than those imposed by climatic conditions and the availability of food and water along the route. Migrating birds often fly in vee formations, because this arrangement allows them to all have clear, undisturbed, air. Only the laws of aerodynamics govern how the migrating flock travels. There are no imposed rules about the way birds are allowed to fly.
On the right of the diagram the situation is quite different. There are rules in many denominations of the Christian religion that prevent women from becoming ordained ministers. There are rules in some countries, such as China, that allow each couple to have only one child. There are rules that prevent people who flee Afghanistan, and travel to Australia in unseaworthy river boats, from living freely in that country. Instead, men women and children are held in what are effectively prisons, at the pleasure of the Federal government. There are rules that prevent more than limited amounts of money from being taken out of one country and into another. There are rules about rules about rules. And all these rules and laws are human inventions. None of them are natural and divine. Yet, they must all be obeyed, because that is the way we were meant to live. The nature of their rules is a key difference between the natural order on the left of the diagram and the man-made order of collectivist states, on the right.
Related:
2nd Renaissance -14
Withdrawing Support For Militarism [179] The problem with revenge is that it lowers the humanity of those who exercise it down to the same level, of even below, those who committed the original crime. Although we can't yet know who was responsible for 911 or 1012, we do now know that forces of the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) have, on occasions, been just as barbaric as the people who killed on those dates. This has been amply demonstrated in Afghanistan and again in Iraq. If you doubt this, seek out more facts about the CoW's use of DU and NDU weaponry and cluster bombs. These horror weapons continue, to this day, to put young children and adult civilians at risk of injury or death from unexploded munitions, radiation, and toxic substances in the ground water and the food chain.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108373.php
Surveillance
It is up to ordinary people to raise the level of debate about the undemocratic surveillance practices of the many faceless and unaccountable agents who make daily intrusions on individual privacy, and about the apologists and propagandists for the War nn Terror who applaud every new attack on human rights and freedoms as "prudent" or "necessary". If there is no discussion of reverse surveillance in the national media, create it on the streets on a citizen to citizen basis. If nobody is talking about the outrageous assaults on privacy and human rights embodied in the new antiterrorist acts forced through US, UK and Australian legislatures, start talking about it to your neighbours and friends.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108175.php
2nd Renaissance -13
Such a development is part of the phenomenon of reverse surveillance that will come to characterise the 2nd Renaissance and a rapid transition to a Level 4 Civilization and a truly free society. You can learn more about reverse surveillance at the 'Surveillance' freesite. Reverse surveillance principles extend well beyond the use of ubiquitous digital imaging technologies, and include audits of all aspects of federal government operations, by randomly selected teams of citizens. The Feds and the parrot people will be quick to pronounce that such monitoting is "not in the national interest," but it will definitely be in our interests, and those of future generations of humanity.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107989.php
2nd Renaissance -12
There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107756.php
2nd Renaissance -11
Fortunately, the power and control of government and military elites is illusory in the 21st century. The world no longer works the way it did, and there is nothing to compel people to support failed, outdated systems any longer. This is an understanding that must be widely and quickly shared. The future of our children and the planet depends upon our changing our thinking about governments, and our support for them.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107560.php
2nd Renaissance -10
In the Afghanistan turkey shoot the CoW forces used vast numbers of hard target weapons and other munitions containing depleted uranium (DU). This substance is almost twice as dense as lead. When it punches through concrete bunkers, armour, or mud huts, DU disintegrates into a chemically toxic and radioactive dust. In contrast to the earlier DU weapons used in Gulf War I, the newer ordinance produced deaths and deformities within weeks of the start of military action by the CoW. Between 1990-91 and 2001 the US arms manufacturers are thought to have "improved" the DU technology by introducing milled uranium ore to their warheads. This non-depleted uranium (NDU) is - wait for it - cheaper to produce and far more potent than DU. It poses massive health risks to civilian populations exposed to it, and constitutes, in every sense of the word, a weapon of mass destruction, or WMD. "Hey they're hunting them in Iraq, aren't they?"
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107216.php
2nd Renaissance -9
The Old World Order will not do anything to smooth the path to a Level 4 Civilization, and a better world. On the contrary, they will do whatever they can to make it difficult. The police, the military, the media, the financial system, the rule of law, and all the mechanisms of civil control and surveillance will be mobilised in defence of the status quo. But, once they understand their options, the people of the world will not engage in a battle with the forces of the OWO. They will simply abandon the old way of living under national rule, for a better, freer, life in new tribal societies. Kinship mechanisms will help people cope with the pressures of official opposition to radical changes that will finally enable them to escape the invisible prison that the OWO had fashioned around them.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107047.php
2nd Renaissance -8
Ultimately the old order will lose the battle to preserve their privileged way of life, based on all prevailing scarcity, pseudo-democracy, and the rule of law. But in the interim, hundreds of millions of innocent people might lose their lives in bloody resistance to the changes being made by the Old World Order (OWO).. If such a terrible thing happens, it will all have been for nothing, because:
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106816.php
Tales of Adam
Daniel Quinn*
http://ishmael.com/index1.cfm
2nd Renaissance -7
When coupled with the introduction of artificial scarcity and taker concepts of property ownership and legal tender, Western death-fearing religions played a significant role in subduing, otherwise independent, tribal peoples.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106537.php
2nd Renaissance -6
The second route involves the setting up of entirely new living spaces on tribal lands that were previously seized by colonising governments that espoused and followed Taker philosophies. This route has greater credibility, in the sense of secession rights, where clear historical ownership of the land can be shown.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106327.php
2nd Renaissance -5
Quinn contends that while governments can imagine a revolution they can't imagine abandonment. As he puts it, "..even if it could imagine abandonment , it couldn't defend against it, because abandonment isn't an attack, it's just a discontinuance of support."
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106136.php
2nd Renaissance -4
In due course, there is one achievement of overriding significance that Caral might well provide. One great contribution or lesson that can be applied to the 2nd Renaissance. How to live in peace, with spiritual meaning, and without warfare, for a thousand years.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105935.php
The New Renaissance
Daniel Quinn*
http://www.mnforsustain.org/quinn_d_new_renaissance.htm
2nd Renaissance -3
Plichta writes of this model as follows. "There was a time I used to make fun of the Apocalypse of St John and believed it to be a totally unreliable historical source. Today I am filled with deep humility, perhaps because I am now able to give a concrete description of the foundation of the world as seen by St John with my mathematical discoveries, and thus possibly open a new way to all of humanity which has now reached a dead end."
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105799.php
2nd Renaissance -2
Georg Cantor (1845-1918), by his origination of modern set theory and his studies of the nature of infinity, left science a valuable legacy. Cantor was regularly admitted to a psychiatric clinic within the University of Halle, in Germany, where he lectured and worked as a Professor of Mathematics. On each occasion that he became ill he had been thinking about infinity and the continuum hypothesis. Such intense thought, at the boundaries of his comprehension, caused Cantor to suffer repeated mental breakdowns. Infinity drove him mad.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105634.php
2nd Renaissance
This story was published in September 2004 and it was a big secret. I received it on disk but I think it should be public by now anyway. It is interesting to look back at it and in terms of today's world some two years on. I will link each chapter as I go along over the coming weeks.- The Old World Order - Happy reading!
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105519.php
Fight Iemma - Debnam
All they can say is 'lock em up'
It seems we are in the thick of it again - the stupid, heartless "Law & Order" auction.
Premier Morris Iemma and Opposition leader Peter Debnam are trying to outdo each other with idiotic "tough on crime" policies.
Original Article
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64701&group=webcast
The following parable was written by the great American humorist James Thurber (1894-1961). In his day Thurber aimed his lines at the Nazis, in Germany. As you read this piece consider where he might aim them if he were alive today.
The Rabbits Who Caused All The Trouble
Within the memory of the youngest child there was a family of rabbits who lived near a pack of wolves. The wolves announced that they did not like the way the rabbits were living. (The wolves were crazy about the way they themselves were living, because it was the only way to live.) One night several wolves were killed in an earthquake and this was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that rabbits pound on the ground with their hind legs and cause earthquakes. On another night one of the wolves was killed by a bolt of lightning, The wolves threatened to civilize the rabbits if they didn't behave, and the rabbits decided to run away to a desert island. But the other animals, who lived at a great distance, shamed them saying, "You must stay where you are and be brave. This is no world for escapists. If the wolves attack you, we will come to your aid in all probability." So the rabbits continued to live near the wolves and one day there was a terrible flood which drowned a great many wolves. This was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that carrot-nibblers with long ears cause floods. The wolves descended on the rabbits, for their own good, and imprisoned them in a dark cave, for their own protection.
When nothing was heard about the rabbits for some weeks, the other animals demanded to know what had happened to them. The wolves replied that the rabbits had been eaten and since they had been eaten the affair was a purely internal matter. But the other animals warned that they might possibly unite against the wolves unless some reason was given for the destruction of the rabbits. So the wolves gave them one. "They were trying to escape," said the wolves, "and, as you know this is no world for escapists. "
Challenge Restrictions Of Civil Freedoms - Support Secessions [181]
History should surely record that the greatest impact of the 911 and 1012 attacks was not the loss of life or the resultant prosecution of a perpetual war on terror by the CoW nations. The greatest impact has been the loss of civil freedoms in those countries. The excuse of a War on Terror has been used to wage a war on dissent, and to shore up the faltering control of the Old World Order over a failed economic system.
Understandably, there is great concern about draconian 'terrorist' countermeasures being introduced by the US, British and Australian governments. In the US in particular, these additional powers and controls will be equivalent to those of a police state, and all pretence of democracy will quickly vanish. Ominously, the opposition to the changes is being based on the dominant idea of forcing the Feds to relent, and this is doomed to failure. Unless the citizens of the CoW nations take a different approach their families, their careers, their businesses and their civil freedoms will be subsumed within a fascist state. This is exactly what happened to the people of Germany it 1933.
Hitler seized power from a minority position in government in 1933. He was not elected by a majority of the German people. On 30 January, a mysterious fire burnt down the Reichstag, the German Parliament. The very next day, Hitler acted to deny all guarantees of personal liberty, freedom of speech and the right of assembly. An only moderately intelligent Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was immediately depicted and tried as the perpetrator of a terrorist plot to destabilise the nation, but there were other victims and scapegoats. Communists, Jews, trade unionists, homosexuals, and other innocents, were made the 'enemies' of the German state. One thing led to another, and in due course, 55 million people died in World War II. Today, there is a widespread belief that the Nazis themselves burnt the Reichstag. But no one is left alive to explain what really happened.
February, 1933, was the right time to have left Nazi Germany, with or without personal possessions and funds. For many Germans there was a life and death decision to be made that year, and most got it wrong. They stayed, and they paid the ultimate price. Now is the time to 'leave' the US, Great Britain, and Australia.
But today, 'leaving' does not mean fleeing abroad. The events in Nazi Germany took place in different times. In 2004, there is no need for citizens to physically leave the land of their birth, simply because a totalitarian, fascist regime, makes a grab for power there.
This is so because secession is now a more practical option than it has been at any time in the past. At first, this is an improbable notion to most people. How could it be easy to opt out of a fascist state, when the regime controls everything? The answer lies in the breakdown in the power of traditional control mechanisms, due to a growing abundance of information, scientific knowledge, new technologies and new ideas. Such unprecedented abundance has the capacity to dissolve the long standing power of scarcity and enable free city states and regions to flourish independently of a centrally managed economy.
Legal actions against individuals and groups proposing secession will certainly be taken by the Feds. But, everyone has an intrinsic right to freedom, and, to the extent that new legislation and powers remove or greatly diminishes that right, there is a clear argument for leaving federalism behind. The ability of city states and regions to opt out, and win the moral argument, is a very different situation to one in which individuals are prosecuted for breaching new security laws within a federation.
In the latter circumstance, in the US, individuals could soon be prosecuted for the 'crime' of 'attempting to influence public opinion'. Besides individual citizens who might post comments on the WWW or speak out in public places, the proposed new powers will give the US Feds the 'legal right' to prosecute environmental, human rights, and anti-globalisation groups. Such controls will be highly effective against activists, journalists, academics, and the like. However, they are totally useless against cities and regions that might choose to abandon the US Federal system completely, and go their own way. This is because, in the latter case, the argument is not about 'crimes' within the federal system, but abandonment of it by a defined collective of people.
When a US city or region abandons federalism, the laws made in Washington, and the self-granted powers of the Feds to prosecute 'terrorists', 'witches' and other menaces, become irrelevant. This is also true for Britain and Australia.
The Fed's War On Dissent [182]
As it is used here the term 'Fed' does not refer to that privately owned institution that controls the US currency and financial system, The Federal Reserve. The term is applied to the federal governments of the CoW nations. The nature and failings of the US Federal Reserve are another story, and one that is already told on several sites on the WWW. Here, we are concerned with the efforts of the US, British and Australian Feds to suppress dissent within their borders, in the name of 'protecting' their populations from shadowy terrorists, radical Muslims, and an allegedly drug-crazed Tooth Fairy.
In the US, the original 'Patriot Act' that was passed by the Congress, in 2001, without having been read by members, was draconian enough. The subsequent Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as 'Patriot Act II', went all the way to a complete totalitarian rule by federal authorities. Most protections of the United States Constitution were removed, and the new police state was given powers that are even beyond those seized by Adolf Hitler in 1933.
The real war in the US today is on individual rights. It is a war on dissent. Dissent against the total domination of the federal administration in all matters: civil, military, social, economic, cultural, and religious. More than that, it is a war on free thought, new ideas and truth. If this seems improbable to you, take the time to read the Patriot Acts (I and II), they are available on the WWW. Most of the new provisions in these documents are only superficially aimed at terrorists, their real targets are individual rights and freedoms. The Members of Congress who were asked to pass the first of these acts did so without having any opportunity to read it. There's a war on, you see.
Alternative Rights - Very Different Freedoms [183]
In 2001, the United States of America ceased to be the republic the Founding Fathers intended, and became, instead, a democracy. This is so because Patriot Act I overrode the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution on many points of individual freedom. Patriot Act II converts the US again, this time to a dictatorship and police state. To understand this, one has only to read a few of the explanations that the author and commentator, G. Edward Griffin, gives about the difference between individualists and collectivists, and between republics and democracies.
With admirable clarity of thought, Griffin cuts through the plethora of labels that are used to describe politics and reduces the difference in approaches to citizen's rights to a single question. Where do the rights originate? Individualists believe that such rights are intrinsic, they come with birth. Collectivists believe that the group is more important than its members, and that rights derive from human institutions, from governments and government law making processes. Here are some of the points that Griffin makes about the difference between individualists and collectivists beliefs about rights.
* "First of all I should tell you that, from my observation, collectivists and individualists, for the most part, are good people. They want the best possible for their families, for their countrymen, and for the world - for mankind. They want peace, prosperity, and justice....Where they disagree is how to bring these things about."
*"The collectivists believes the group is the most important element of society; that all solutions to problems are better solved at the group level than at the individual level; and that the larger the problem is, the larger the group should be to solve the problem. And so they believe in collective action....The collectivist sees government as the solution, because government is the ultimate group, and so the collectivist mind can be easily recognised. It always has an affinity to government as the solver of problems. The individualist, by the way, is more sceptical. He tends to look at government as the creator of problems."
*"Collectivist solutions gravitate from local governments to state government, to national government, and finally to world government. If there is a really big problem, such as the environmental issue involving the whole planet, the collectivist is convinced that it cannot be solved except through the action of world government."
*"The collectivist believes that the group is more important than the individual and, if necessary, the individual must be sacrificed for the group. Sometimes that is expressed in terms of 'the greater good for the greater number.' It's a very appealing argument."
*"The individualist on the other hand says. 'Wait a minute. Group?' 'What is group?' That's just a word. You cannot touch a group. You cannot see a group. All you can touch and see are individuals. They make up the group....So the individualist sees that, if you sacrifice the individual for the group, you have made a huge mistake. The individual is the essence of the group. He is the core of the group. The group has no claim to sacrifice its own essence."
*"The view of individualism was expressed clearly in the United States Declaration of Independence, which said: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men.' Nothing could be more clear than that. 'Unalienable Rights' means they are the natural possession of each of us upon birth, not granted by the state. The purpose of government is, not to grant rights, but to secure them and protect them."
*"By contrast, all collectivist political systems embrace the view that rights are granted by the state. That includes the Nazis, Fascists, and Communists. It is also a tenet of the United Nations. Article Four of the UN Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights says: 'The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise that, in the enjoyment of those rights provided by the State....the State may subject such rights only to such limitations as are determined by law.'
The reason this is important is that, if we agree that the state has the power to grant rights, then we must also agree that it has the power to take them away. You cannot have one without the other. Notice the wording of the UN Covenant. After proclaiming that rights are provided by the state, it then says that those rights may be subject to limitations 'as are determined by law.' In other words, the collectivists at the UN presume to grant us our rights and, when they are ready to take them away, all they have to do is pass a law authorising it.
Compare that with the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. It says Congress shall pass no law restricting the rights of freedom of speech, or religion, peaceful assembly, the right to bear arms, and so forth - not except as determined by law, but no law. What a difference there is between individualism and collectivism."
*"The collectivist says you have to force people. That's why he has an affinity to government. Government is the embodiment of legalised force. You can always spot a collectivist because, when he confronts a problem, his first reaction is to say, 'There ought to be a law.' His attitude is that we must force people to do what we think they should do."
*"By contrast, individualists say. 'We also think we are right and others are wrong, but we don't believe in forcing anyone to comply with our will because, if we grant that principle, then others, representing larger groups than our own, can compel us to act as they decree, and we will have lost our freedom."
*"As an individualist, I am not opposed to collective action. Just because I believe in freedom of choice does not mean I have to move my piano alone. It just means that I renounce the right to compel someone to help me. Individualists seek cooperation based on voluntary action, not compulsion.
And so here we have a second distinction between the collectivist and the individualist. The collectivist believes in coercion. The individualist believes in freedom."
Further, Griffin explains, that whereas a republic is designed on individualist principles, with strict limitations on the powers of law makers to impinge on human rights and freedoms, a democracy is built on collectivism, and the state can grant and remove rights as it sees fit.
When the CoW forces invaded Iraq, the senior US Military Commander in the field announced that the aim was to bring the Iraqi people democracy and the rule of law. That was undoubtedly the plan. The US did not, and still does not, wish to see an Islamic Republic replace the regime of Sadam Hussein. It wants a collectivist government that can remove rights by majority vote and enforce its injustice through the rule of law. Here are some of the key distinctions that G. Edward Griffin makes between a democracy and a republic. He says.
"We have been taught to believe that a Democracy is the ideal form of government. Supposedly, that is what was created by the American Constitution. However, if you read the documents of the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution, you find that they spoke very poorly of Democracy. They said in plain English that a Democracy was one of the worst possible forms of government. And so they created what they called a Republic. The bottom line is that the difference between a Democracy and a Republic is the difference between collectivism and individualism."
*"In a pure Democracy, the concept is that the majority shall rule. That's the end of the discussion.....A Republic is simply a limited Democracy, a Democracy with limits on what the group can do, with limits on what the majority can do. Republics are characterised by written constitutions that say the government - even though it represents the majority - shall not do this; the government shall not do that; and it shall be prevented from doing that also. We have individual liberties and rights that stand higher and are more important than the group."
Griffin also crystallises the concept of the political spectrum, which purportedly has 'left' and 'right' orientations, but in reality is only a measure of how much government there is. He says.
*"We often hear about right-wingers versus left-wingers, but what do these terms actually mean? For example we are told that Communists and Socialists are at the extreme Left, and Nazis and Fascists are on the extreme Right. Here we have two powerful ideological forces pitted against each other, and the impression is that somehow, they are opposites. But, what is the difference? They are not opposites at all. They are the same....Communists believe in international Socialism, whereas Nazis advocate national Socialism. Communists promote class hatred and class conflict to motivate the loyalty and blind obedience of their followers, whereas the Nazis use race conflict and race hatred to accomplish the same objective. Other than that, there is absolutely no difference between Communism and Nazism. They are both the epitome of collectivism, and yet we are told they are, supposedly, at opposite ends of the spectrum."
*"There's only one thing that makes sense in constructing a political spectrum and that is to put zero government at one end and 100% at the other. Now we have something we can comprehend. Those who believe in zero government are the anarchists, and those who believe in total government are the totalitarians. With that definition we find that Communism and Nazism are together at the same end. They are both totalitarian concepts. Why? Because they are both based on the model of collectivism. Communism, Nazism, Fascism and Socialism all gravitate toward bigger and bigger government, because that is the logical extension of their common ideology. They cannot help becoming what they are. More government is needed to solve bigger problems, and bigger problems require more government. Once you get on the slippery slope of collectivism, once you accept that ideology, there is no place to stop until you reach all the way to the end of the scale, which is 100% government. Regardless of what name you give it, regardless of how you re-label it to make it seem new or different, collectivism is totalitarianism."
*"We need government, of course, but the concept of what kind of government must be built on individualism, an ideology that pushes always toward that part of the spectrum that involves the least government necessary to make things work instead of collectivism, which always pushes toward the other end of the spectrum for the most amount of government to make things work. "
It is by no means certain that Griffin is right about the last point - the need for some government - but the rest of his analysis and reasoning is sound.
Instead of needing some government to make things work it is possible to have new-tribalism and a Leaver-Giver model instead. Then there need not be any government at all.
This would not have been possible during the 20th century when Communism, Nazism and Fascism were so much in evidence. At that time the new science and technology needed to support a new society and a Level 4 Civilization did not exist. Managing scarcity was the central principle of economics, and governments were the dominant political force in nation states. However, none of those conditions still apply. Now the game is about managing the distribution of the fruits of abundance, to ensure that maximum good is first done in areas where it is most needed - in the poorest places on earth. Free city states and talent collectives are inherently small enough to operate along tribal lines, and there is no need to have any traditional government to fulfil a political function. Surprising as it might seem, we are on the threshold of an age of rampant individualism and world wide peace.
Contrasting Natural and Collectivist Social Orders - [184]
Balance Versus Dominance
The diagram below shows the major differences between the collectivist social order that is associated with takerism and the older, natural, social order of peoples such as the Australian aborigines and the tribes of the Amazon, who successfully followed Leaver principles for tens of thousands of years.
See large pic below
On the left, we see that individual species, humans and others, have inalienable rights. These rights are not granted and they cannot be withdrawn. They stem from the divine order that creates matter, structure, and life.
On the right, there is the concept of human-created collectivism, and bigger and bigger governments, all the way to a global, totalitarian state. The distinguishing feature is that, here, the 'order' in society is made by men, it is not natural. Nor is it divine.
Whereas natural rights, on the left, cover all living things, the artificial rights that are given and taken by nation states, on the right, only apply to humans. The dominant idea is, as Daniel Quinn observes, "Humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community (there's us and there's nature)."
Historically, there have been periods when legal distinctions between animals and humans have been blurred. For instance, in medieval Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries, numerous trials and executions of animals occurred. One source identifies 34 recorded instances of pigs having been tried and cruelly put to death. Besides pigs; rats, chickens, goats, and bees were similarly tried. Some of the pigs were fully dressed in human clothes at the time they were, inevitably, found guilty. In one case a vicar excommunicated a flock of sparrows that infested his church. All this happened despite the theological stance that animals had no soul, and no morals or conscience. They could not really be guilty of transgressing the Rule of Law.
Clearly, there was a period of confusion in the West when remnants of the beliefs (some would say superstitions) of the old, pre-taker, tribal societies existed alongside the new doctrines and dogma of man-made collectivism and religious interpretation. Today the distinction has all been resolved. Even the UN groups that deal with animal matters are clear that animals do not have natural rights. They are merely 'there' to be exploited.
Thus, the Whale Shark, the largest fish in the world, was recently protected by the UN group that monitors trade in endangered species. The UN did this, not because they recognised that the whale sharks have any natural rights, as part of a divine creation, but because some countries, including the Philippines, India, and Britain, argued that these enormous fish are worth more as eco-tourism attractions than as shark fin soup. It was a purely economic decision, the rights of the whale shark did not enter into consideration. This is unsurprising, since the United Nations is a Taker institution that was established by nation states to look after their interests - not those of the animals and plants on this planet.
In a Taker society that is run on collectivist lines - and they all are - the power of life or death rests with the state. In a true tribal society, one that exists with nature on Leaver principles, the power of life or death is in the hands of the natural order of things, as determined by the design of the material world. Social groupings of the human animal, into tribes, live by the rule of reason, obligation, and the rectification of wrongs. Collectivist governments, on the other hand, gravitate to the total dominance of all matters, including the determination of life and death. In the natural world, where human tribes belong, there is balance and reason instead of dominance. Leavers do not 'conquer' the land and annihilate all those who don't happen to agree with them. Takers do exactly that, until they overextend their reach and exhaust the capacity of their economy and their forces.
The Rule of Reason [185]
In his novel, The Story of B, Daniel Quinn outlines the difference between tribal law and what passes for just law-making in collectivist societies. He illustrates his points with an example relating to adultery, a common enough occurrence in every human community. He writes.
*"Tribal laws are never invented laws, they're always received laws. They're never the work of committees of living individuals, they're always the work of social evolution. They're shaped the way a bird's beak is shaped, or a mole's claw - by what works. They never reflect a tribe's concern for what's "right" or "good" or "fair," they simply work - for that particular tribe."
*"Here's how the Alawa of Australia handle adultery...." (The example is quite lengthy. Look it up - on page 314 of the paperback edition, 1997 - if you want to know the details. L )
*"Nothing like invented law, which just spells out crimes and punishments, tribal law is something that works. It works well for all concerned. A man and woman whose love is as great as this must of course have each other. But for the sake of the tribe they must be gone - out of sight, out of mind forever. The children of the tribe have seen with their own eyes that marriage and love are not the trifling matters they have become among "advanced" peoples like us. The husband's dishonour has been avenged - and there will be no snickering among his comrades about it, for they stood side by side with him to lambaste the adulterer."
*"Every part of this process is the law, and every actor in it is a participant in the law. The law for these people isn't a separate statute written in a book. It's the very fabric of their lives - it's what makes the Alawa the Alawa and what distinguishes them from the Mara and the Malanugga-nugga -who have their own ways of handling adultery, which are best for them. It can't possibly be said too often that there is no one right way for people to live, that's only the delusion of the most murderous and destructive culture that history has ever produced."
Quinn makes the point that the emphasis in tribal law is always on correcting the harm done. The Rule of Law that applies in collectivist societies, even before they become totalitarian states, places its emphasis on punishment. Even in cases where courts award damages the compensation is always in a monetary form; loss of an arm is worth so much, damage to reputation is worth so much. The philosophy seems to be that every harm can be expressed as a sum of money, and that there is no need to do anything more than fix the price of the damage.
This simplistic and mechanistic view, is characteristic of materialist cultures. But it is totally foreign to the tribal peoples of the Amazon forests or the Australian wilderness. They have laws that aim to repair feelings and lessen animosities. Their aim is to keep their tribes functional and to maintain respect for the rights of the other creatures and life-forms that share their world. Tribal laws reflect a very different mindset, and a system that is much longer lived and successful than modern approaches to law-making and justice.
Divine Order Versus Secular Structures [186]
The word 'God' in the above diagram refers to the divine order of creation, rather than the concept portrayed in the various interpreted religions of the world. God, in the context of the diagram, is the same as the "Great Spirit" (etc) of pre-taker tribal societies. This is the God of earlier times, not necessarily the God of the sages who wrote the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The diagram simply contrasts the secular structures and man-made order of modern nation states and interpreted religions with the natural order that tribes, flocks, herds, hives, and all other collections of creatures follow.
Every social group has rules of conduct and ways of achieving order. The key difference between the two sides of the diagram is that on the left the rules evolve within what is practical, while on the right the rules are determined by elites. Whether those elites are in religious institutions or state institutions they determine how others in the society should live.
In 'modern' society the parrot people of the media often tend to reinforce the notion that the way the churches and the various layers of government say we should live is the way we were meant to live. This is an implicit message, for as Daniel Quinn notes, we are seldom aware of the paradigm that he terms 'Mother Culture,' even though we live by it all the time.
On the left of the diagram is the natural world where all creatures are free to determine, for themselves, how they live. They do this within the practical bounds set by the divine structure of nature and the cosmos. A bird is designed to fly, so it can migrate from one continent to another without regard for any rules other than those imposed by climatic conditions and the availability of food and water along the route. Migrating birds often fly in vee formations, because this arrangement allows them to all have clear, undisturbed, air. Only the laws of aerodynamics govern how the migrating flock travels. There are no imposed rules about the way birds are allowed to fly.
On the right of the diagram the situation is quite different. There are rules in many denominations of the Christian religion that prevent women from becoming ordained ministers. There are rules in some countries, such as China, that allow each couple to have only one child. There are rules that prevent people who flee Afghanistan, and travel to Australia in unseaworthy river boats, from living freely in that country. Instead, men women and children are held in what are effectively prisons, at the pleasure of the Federal government. There are rules that prevent more than limited amounts of money from being taken out of one country and into another. There are rules about rules about rules. And all these rules and laws are human inventions. None of them are natural and divine. Yet, they must all be obeyed, because that is the way we were meant to live. The nature of their rules is a key difference between the natural order on the left of the diagram and the man-made order of collectivist states, on the right.
Related:
2nd Renaissance -14
Withdrawing Support For Militarism [179] The problem with revenge is that it lowers the humanity of those who exercise it down to the same level, of even below, those who committed the original crime. Although we can't yet know who was responsible for 911 or 1012, we do now know that forces of the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) have, on occasions, been just as barbaric as the people who killed on those dates. This has been amply demonstrated in Afghanistan and again in Iraq. If you doubt this, seek out more facts about the CoW's use of DU and NDU weaponry and cluster bombs. These horror weapons continue, to this day, to put young children and adult civilians at risk of injury or death from unexploded munitions, radiation, and toxic substances in the ground water and the food chain.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108373.php Surveillance
It is up to ordinary people to raise the level of debate about the undemocratic surveillance practices of the many faceless and unaccountable agents who make daily intrusions on individual privacy, and about the apologists and propagandists for the War nn Terror who applaud every new attack on human rights and freedoms as "prudent" or "necessary". If there is no discussion of reverse surveillance in the national media, create it on the streets on a citizen to citizen basis. If nobody is talking about the outrageous assaults on privacy and human rights embodied in the new antiterrorist acts forced through US, UK and Australian legislatures, start talking about it to your neighbours and friends.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/108175.php 2nd Renaissance -13
Such a development is part of the phenomenon of reverse surveillance that will come to characterise the 2nd Renaissance and a rapid transition to a Level 4 Civilization and a truly free society. You can learn more about reverse surveillance at the 'Surveillance' freesite. Reverse surveillance principles extend well beyond the use of ubiquitous digital imaging technologies, and include audits of all aspects of federal government operations, by randomly selected teams of citizens. The Feds and the parrot people will be quick to pronounce that such monitoting is "not in the national interest," but it will definitely be in our interests, and those of future generations of humanity.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107989.php 2nd Renaissance -12
There are reports that in one Balinese kampong that provided labour to the clubs in Kuta Beach, seven empty coffins were buried, because there were no identifiable remains of the missing workers. It was as if they had been vaporised. Scores of people, mainly locals, are thought to have disappeared without trace.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/03/107756.php 2nd Renaissance -11
Fortunately, the power and control of government and military elites is illusory in the 21st century. The world no longer works the way it did, and there is nothing to compel people to support failed, outdated systems any longer. This is an understanding that must be widely and quickly shared. The future of our children and the planet depends upon our changing our thinking about governments, and our support for them.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107560.php 2nd Renaissance -10
In the Afghanistan turkey shoot the CoW forces used vast numbers of hard target weapons and other munitions containing depleted uranium (DU). This substance is almost twice as dense as lead. When it punches through concrete bunkers, armour, or mud huts, DU disintegrates into a chemically toxic and radioactive dust. In contrast to the earlier DU weapons used in Gulf War I, the newer ordinance produced deaths and deformities within weeks of the start of military action by the CoW. Between 1990-91 and 2001 the US arms manufacturers are thought to have "improved" the DU technology by introducing milled uranium ore to their warheads. This non-depleted uranium (NDU) is - wait for it - cheaper to produce and far more potent than DU. It poses massive health risks to civilian populations exposed to it, and constitutes, in every sense of the word, a weapon of mass destruction, or WMD. "Hey they're hunting them in Iraq, aren't they?"
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107216.php 2nd Renaissance -9
The Old World Order will not do anything to smooth the path to a Level 4 Civilization, and a better world. On the contrary, they will do whatever they can to make it difficult. The police, the military, the media, the financial system, the rule of law, and all the mechanisms of civil control and surveillance will be mobilised in defence of the status quo. But, once they understand their options, the people of the world will not engage in a battle with the forces of the OWO. They will simply abandon the old way of living under national rule, for a better, freer, life in new tribal societies. Kinship mechanisms will help people cope with the pressures of official opposition to radical changes that will finally enable them to escape the invisible prison that the OWO had fashioned around them.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/107047.php 2nd Renaissance -8
Ultimately the old order will lose the battle to preserve their privileged way of life, based on all prevailing scarcity, pseudo-democracy, and the rule of law. But in the interim, hundreds of millions of innocent people might lose their lives in bloody resistance to the changes being made by the Old World Order (OWO).. If such a terrible thing happens, it will all have been for nothing, because:
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106816.php Tales of Adam
Daniel Quinn*
http://ishmael.com/index1.cfm 2nd Renaissance -7
When coupled with the introduction of artificial scarcity and taker concepts of property ownership and legal tender, Western death-fearing religions played a significant role in subduing, otherwise independent, tribal peoples.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106537.php 2nd Renaissance -6
The second route involves the setting up of entirely new living spaces on tribal lands that were previously seized by colonising governments that espoused and followed Taker philosophies. This route has greater credibility, in the sense of secession rights, where clear historical ownership of the land can be shown.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106327.php 2nd Renaissance -5
Quinn contends that while governments can imagine a revolution they can't imagine abandonment. As he puts it, "..even if it could imagine abandonment , it couldn't defend against it, because abandonment isn't an attack, it's just a discontinuance of support."
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/106136.php 2nd Renaissance -4
In due course, there is one achievement of overriding significance that Caral might well provide. One great contribution or lesson that can be applied to the 2nd Renaissance. How to live in peace, with spiritual meaning, and without warfare, for a thousand years.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105935.php The New Renaissance
Daniel Quinn*
http://www.mnforsustain.org/quinn_d_new_renaissance.htm 2nd Renaissance -3
Plichta writes of this model as follows. "There was a time I used to make fun of the Apocalypse of St John and believed it to be a totally unreliable historical source. Today I am filled with deep humility, perhaps because I am now able to give a concrete description of the foundation of the world as seen by St John with my mathematical discoveries, and thus possibly open a new way to all of humanity which has now reached a dead end."
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105799.php 2nd Renaissance -2
Georg Cantor (1845-1918), by his origination of modern set theory and his studies of the nature of infinity, left science a valuable legacy. Cantor was regularly admitted to a psychiatric clinic within the University of Halle, in Germany, where he lectured and worked as a Professor of Mathematics. On each occasion that he became ill he had been thinking about infinity and the continuum hypothesis. Such intense thought, at the boundaries of his comprehension, caused Cantor to suffer repeated mental breakdowns. Infinity drove him mad.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105634.php 2nd Renaissance
This story was published in September 2004 and it was a big secret. I received it on disk but I think it should be public by now anyway. It is interesting to look back at it and in terms of today's world some two years on. I will link each chapter as I go along over the coming weeks.- The Old World Order - Happy reading!
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/105519.php Fight Iemma - Debnam
All they can say is 'lock em up'
It seems we are in the thick of it again - the stupid, heartless "Law & Order" auction.
Premier Morris Iemma and Opposition leader Peter Debnam are trying to outdo each other with idiotic "tough on crime" policies.
Original Article
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64701&group=webcast
Lothar
Homepage:
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64701&group=webcast
