Why do you keep bringing native Americans into it? You seem to assume
that all preliterate societies were at the same level of social
evolution and that the differences between them somehow disproves that
primitive communism ever existed. At the time of Columbus the North
Americans were at a considerably more advanced stage of social evolution
than the Australians at the time of Captain Cook. Yet you use them as if
they refute that the Australians lived in the economic conditions that
they did. At the time of the voyage of Columbus most of the American
population lived in a condition called barbarian. That term is normally
used to describe a pastoral economy and the native Americans did not
have much in the way of domestic herds, but the economic system was
quite comparable. The undomesticated bison herds did substitute for
domestic herd is in the plains, but most of North America was on an
economic par. It was an entire different ball game from what was
practiced in Australia. In addition to that there were two full blown
civilizations in the Americas, one in Mexico and one in Peru. As
civilizations they had evolved to the point of clear class
stratification including slaves and including imperialism that provided
the slaves. To find egalitarian primitive communism at the time you
would need to look at the Amazon basin and Patagonia. The economic
system was very close to the Australian system in those places. Also in
the far north a very similar system existed even if it was rather
fragmented. That is, among the Inuit the community was very small and
came in the form of bands that, since we are all bound to the ways in
which humans reproduce, were virtually the same as family units. Within
those family units, though, the economic relations were egalitarian even
if the status of women was low. Everyone in the band engaged in labor
and the labor was done to benefit the entire band. Because of the
fragmentation most any other band would have been considered a different
community, but at the same time when bands met there was an exchange of
people that kept them friendly if they were not directly competing for
resources. Anyway, though, there is an uneven progression in social
evolution from one locale to another and not all locales are in even
necessarily similar levels. You just use the term preliterate, which
simply means that they have never learned to read, and see the
differences between them and claim that those differences refute the
entire concept of social and economic evolution. Instead, it is more of
a proof of it. With different populations at different stages we can
actually study the progression and how the progression progresses.
On 3/3/2016 9:42 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
But those Native Americans did sometimes know each other's language. And
certainly, we have modern examples of peoples who know each other's
language and still fight. They fight over differences in religion or tribal
identity. You are describing a theory, and it sounds reasonable, but there
are all kinds of exceptions which, it seems to me, could invalidate it. You
can call me ethnocentric. I can only make judgments on the basis of what I
have read about, the data available to me. I studied anthropology and
sociology in college. Preliterate societies varied widely. Some were
peaceful and cooperative. Some were warlike. Some were competitive.
Everyone had to labor in order for the members of the group to live because
providing resources was always an issue. But that didn't result in all of
these societies being egalitarian.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 11:50 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
Well, I described a society that was built around a sense of community in
which the concept of community was extended by circumstance. The
circumstance had a lot to do with a common language. Yes, in various
primitive societies there was a lot of warfare over resources, but there was
mutual cooperation within communities. I was trying to say that the limits
of the community were most often defined by language barriers. If you do not
understand one another it is a lot more difficult to establish a mutual
beneficial community and so it is harder to cooperate. The Australian
example is most probably an example of both what it was like before the
language differences became so extreme and it is also an illustration of how
languages diverged too. If one population can communicate with the next
population which can communicate with the next population, but distant
populations cannot communicate then what happens if the folks in the middle
somehow get wiped out? New communities and new nationalities come instantly
into being. It is interesting that Jared Diamond described something almost
identical when he proposed how the Japanese and Korean languages so
radically diverged. His proposition was that in the past the people living
in the southern part of Korea did become extinct and that led to the
Japanese language, which descended from the Korean language, becoming more
dissimilar to Korean than most Indo-European languages are dissimilar to
each other. Diamond did not get into the cultural differences, but that is
the explanation of that too. Once the communities become apart from each
other and unintelligible to each other they continue to diverge. Other
cultures may be hard to believe, but they do exist. To claim that they seem
like some garden of Eden fairy tale is essentially ethnocentrism. It is also
cultural myopia.
Guard against assuming that the way people do things in the narrow confines
of the people you personally know, in your local community or your own
culture milieu and in the confines of your own lifetime are the only way
things can be done. Remember that if an Australian aborigine of a couple
hundred years ago was told about how you live he would most likely refuse to
admit that it was possible too. He would say that it is against human
nature.
On 3/2/2016 10:34 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
OK. I guess that I doubt that given how people behave, it's actuallyapple.
possible to have a society in which all people labor for the human
good.But in the kind of pre literate society that you're talking
about, yes, everyone had to participate in one way or another. But in
many of these societies, like the Native Americans, there were leaders
and followers, and the groups tended to attack other groups in order
to capture their belongings and sometimes, to enslave their members.
And then, one has to consider just what kind of labor is involved. The
original Australians that you describe sound absolutely lovely and
sort of hard to believe, like The Garden of Eden before Eve tasted the
Miriamthere were and still are hundreds of languages in a very small area.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 10:12 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
If you are not using the word class in the same way that I am then you
are talking about a different subject and using the same word to talk
about a different subject to someone who is talking about one subject
at the same time that you are talking about a different subject is a
recipe for a failure to communicate. Anyway, a classless society does
not deny the existence of leaders or even bullies. What makes preclass
societies classless is that all members of the community participate
in labor and the labor is conducted for the collective good of the
community. It would be a stretch of the definition of exploitation,
but if there is any exploitation of labor then it is a mutual
exploitation. One feature of the Australian social system before the
European colonization is the lack of clear lines in regard to where
one community ended and another began. In most cases of preclass
societies the limit was the limit of language. Even in nearby New Guinea
These languages were unintelligible to each other and effectively madegroup.
a barrier that defined the community.
There are a lot of indications that prior to ancient imperialist
conquests the proliferation of languages was similar over the entire
planet. Of course, the necessity of common origins of humanity means
that even prior to that there must have been only a few or even one
universal language. The linguistic distribution in Australia was a bit
different, though, and may well be closer to what the situation was
prior to the extreme proliferation of mutually unintelligible languages.
In one area the people spoke in the same way while just a few miles
away some of the words were different and inflections were slightly
different, but there was no problem in understanding each other. The
neighbors were considered part of the community and aided each other.
A few miles further along the people spoke a little bit more different
from the first group and less different from the second group and to
the second group were no more difficult to understand than the first
group and so were treated as just as much of the community as the first
The first group would have noticed more profound differences in theirwas mutually beneficial too. That is, they had mutual interests and few
speech, but would have had not much trouble understanding them while
having less contact with them. Then just a few miles even further away
the same kind of pattern was seen. Once you got about half way across
the continent the people would be speaking so different from the first
group that they would not be able to understand each other at all and
so they would effectively be speaking another language. But would it
really be a different language since each adjacent group would be able
to understand one another perfectly well? On the rare occasions that
people from one side of the continent interacted with one another they
would have considered each other to have been different communities
and in the modern world would have been considered to be of different
nationalities. Nevertheless, each adjacent group considered itself to
be one community. They just lived in slightly different areas. What
this led to was that effectively the whole continent was cooperating
with each other for mutual benefit with no coercion and no
coordinating government. The whole continent was living in anarchy,
the same kind of anarchy that the anarchists advocate. It functioned
because the people of one locale saw each other as friends and
neighbors and realized that mutual cooperation with the people around
oneself was beneficial to oneself and the others too. They also had
every reason to understand that cooperating with the people over the hill
conflicting interests.
Then the Europeans showed up and started deporting their criminalsor another.
into the continent and insisting that the natives adopt the European
culture or else and that kind of messed everything up.
On 3/2/2016 9:28 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I don't know anything about the social organization and culture of
the indigenous population of Australia. But I do know how little
children behave in a play area. Some kids are more aggressive than
others. Some take toys from others. Some push others out of the way
in order to be first going down the slide. I suspect that those folks
in Australia had a power structure with some being the leaders or the
elites or whatever, even if that meant that they were the ones who
decided how the food would be divided up or how tasks would be
allotted. I'm not using the word, "class", in the precise manner that
you are. But I am saying that in any group of people, you'll end up
with some individuals who are more dominant, who are leaders in one way
The power is never distributed equally.been removed and the state will fade away.
Miriamgoal.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 8:36 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
If you claim that the main barrier to a classless society is human
nature then you will have to explain all of the classless and
stateless societies that have existed. About the only way I can see
that you can do that is to exclude them from being humans. To pick
out just one example, I would expect that all of the people who are
descended from the residents of Australia before the European
colonization might rather object to such a characterization.
On 3/2/2016 10:59 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I think the main barrier to a classless society is human nature, notanarchist.
the stae. But other than that, I suppose I could call myself an
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 10:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
Anarchism and socialism are very similar. I have explained on this
list before that anarchists and communists have pretty much the same
Anarchists just call that goal anarchy and communists call it communism.
Both tendencies are for the eventual abolition of the state. The
main difference is that the anarchists see the biggest obstacle to
that eventual goal to be the state itself. They have the idea that
class society is caused by the existence of the state and that if
the state were abolished then class society would go away. Lenin's
book, State and Revolution, was mainly a polemic against the
anarchists. He argued that their stance that a classless society
could be attained by the abolition of the state would not work
because those who had an interest in the state's continued existence
would just reestablish it on the instant that it was abolished. I
will counterpose scientific socialism to anarchism now because even
though I said that socialism and anarchism are very similar it is
more accurate to point out that anarchists have always been
considered to be socialists, just not of the scientific variety.
Scientific socialists hold that class society causes the state, that
the state is a way of regulating and administering class
relationships and that if class society is abolished then the
objective conditions for the continued existence of the state will have
something in common.That is, itwill gradually transform from a means of administering people into a
means of administering things.
By the way, it is important to remember that anarchists call
themselves libertarians. They were calling themselves libertarians a
long time before the right wing libertarians started calling
themselves libertarians. That is why I cringe whenever the word
libertarian is used on this list as if right-wing libertarian was
the only kind of libertarian. Insofar as they advocate the abolition
of the state or its minimization, though, the right-wing
libertarians and the left-wing libertarians, the anarchists, have
what anarchism is....The main difference between those two camps is that the left-wingtalking about and that Chuck does not know enough about it himself to
libertarians are in favor of the abolition of capitalism and class
society in general and the right-wing libertarians are for the
elimination of the state, but have no problem with capitalism and
with class society in general. Still, though, there are a whole lot
of complete misconceptions at large about what anarchism is and,
unfortunately, that is true among a lot of people who falsely call
themselves anarchists. That is probably why Chuck says that all the
anarchists he knows seem so selfish. The point is that the people he
knows who call themselves anarchists probably do not know what they
are
recognize that.
On 3/1/2016 9:57 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:Re:
Emma Goldman was an anarchist. There's a book about her on BARD and
one on Bookshare. I haven't gotten through much but she sounds very
close to being a socialist.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 9:21 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy]
anarchy.[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
My comment about bringing on the anarchy was intended as a
sarcastic response to your elevation of property over justice for
human beings and the then disparaging indication that otherwise you
would have
But, actually, I wonder if you have really ever known an anarchist.
Most of the people I have known who call themselves anarchists do
not know what they are talking about. I remember one who was a
singer in a punk band who called himself an anarchist and I asked
him which anarchist tradition he adhered to. He didn't seem to know
what I meant so I offered some suggestions, Kropotkin, Proudhon,
Bakunin
who?
anarchist.He then said that he was not an old anarchist, he was a new anarchist.vote for Bill Clinton.
Then he threw around some words like death and destruction. I just
shut up having satisfied myself that he did not have the slightest
idea what an anarchist was. Then there was the woman who claimed to
be an anarchist and when I tried to explain to her where I thought
anarchist politics went wrong she also seemed to not know what I
was talking about and then went on to tell me about how important
it was to
The list goes on. There have been a few, though, who did adhere to
traditional anarchist collectivism. I worked with a man in the
anti-draft movement who was well grounded in anarchist politics and
history. At a later time I got peripherally involved in the defense
of a high school student who was expelled from school for being an
I had some conversations with her and while I found her a bit naive
she was definitely learning about and following anarchist politics.
Later she sued the school board and even though I was not present
in the courtroom I caught a report on television and was surprised
that my old comrade in the anti-draft movement testified as a
friend of the court and as an expert on anarchism. He turned out to
be a university professor by then. Since you describe the
anarchists you have known as selfish people I suspect that they
were of the variety who claim to be anarchists but do not understand
murdered'And if you take their claims of being anarchists as good coin Ifact, anarchist philosophy is completely incompatible with selfishness.
suspect that you don't know much about it either. I do happen to
have some very strong reservations about anarchism, especially the
position about abolishing the state by decree and the theory that
capitalism is a manifestation of the state rather than the state
being a manifestation of capitalism or some other class system, but
it is undeniable that many anarchists have dedicated themselves to
anarchist collectivism as both a revolutionary goal and as a way of
life. That is far from selfishness. In
On 3/1/2016 12:54 PM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman for
DMARC) wrote:
what has anarchy ever done for people? The anarchists that I know
of are extremely self-serving and operate out of a very narrow
perspective, their own!
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 5:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy]
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out:
Finicum was flat murdered'
Property before people? How capitalist. Bring on the anarchy.
On 2/23/2016 6:38 AM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman
for
DMARC) wrote:
the real issue here is how one chooses to fight for injustice.
When one crosses certain boundaries such as property lines there
are potential consequences. We live in a society where anarchy
does not rule.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 8:31 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
5.agitators.farmers.cops.And what does one risk when one chooses to not fight back against
injustice?
On 2/19/2016 9:26 PM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman
for
DMARC) wrote:
when one chooses to live as an outlaw and adopt the ways of the
wild west taking over property that doesn't belong to them they
run the risk of being killed or murderedd if one chooses to use
the melodramatic rflare.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2016 6:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
http://themilitant.com/2016/8007/800755.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 7 February 22, 2016
'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
BY SETH GALINSKY
Working people should denounce the cold-blooded Jan. 26 killing
of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum by Oregon State Police and the FBI;
the frame-up conspiracy charges against Ammon Bundy and others
who took part in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge; and the frame-up of Dwight and Steven Hammond, two
Harney County, Oregon, cattle ranchers, imprisoned for a second
time on the same bogus arson charges dating back to 2001 and 2006.
"The truth will come out. LaVoy was just flat murdered," Tad
Houpt, the owner of a small logging company, said by phone Feb. 7.
Finicum and Bundy were traveling to a Jan. 26 community meeting
that Houpt helped organize in John Day, Oregon, when they were
intercepted by the
Bundy initiated the refuge occupation Jan. 2 to draw attention
both to the frame-up of the Hammonds and to U.S. government land
policies that have been undermining the livelihood of ranchers
and
up.ranch.The persecution of the Hammonds outraged small ranchers and
farmers throughout the West - controlled burns are common to
control invasive plants and to prevent the spread of wildfires.
Despite serving the sentence imposed by the trial judge, the
Hammonds went back to jail Jan. 4, because of a U.S. Appeals
Court ruling that their sentences didn't meet federal minimum rules.
After the trial the U.S. Bureau of Land Management vindictively
revoked the Hammonds' grazing permits, threatening the survival
of their
Meanwhile, the Oregonian reported Feb. 6 that the scanty
official information and one grainy video released on the
killing confirm many aspects of the accounts by Shawna Cox and
Victoria Sharp - who were in the pickup truck driven by Finicum.
According to both of them, the cops first fired one shot at the
vehicle they were in after Finicum initially pulled over.
Finicum then shouted out to the cops, "I'm going to see the
sheriff," a reference to Sheriff Glenn Palmer of Grant County,
who was also scheduled to be at the John Day meeting and has
been quoted in the press as saying the Hammonds should be freed.
Finicum tried to drive away, but was soon forced off the road again.
The
Oregonian reports that the FBI admits lethal force was used when
the truck "approached the checkpoint," that is, even before the
vehicle crashed into the snow bank and Finicum gets out with his
hands
Much of the capitalist press justifies the killing and
prosecutions by labeling Finicum and Bundy as extremists and
outside
land policies."To his detractors," the New York Times said, "he was a
doctrinaire leader of an illegal protest that is deeply opposed
by many who live near the refuge." The paper conveniently leaves
out that most people in the area support the demand to free the
Hammonds and are sympathetic to their opposition to the
government
Many local residents visited the refuge, met Finicum and Bundy
or donated food and supplies to the occupiers.
Some 1,000 people attended Finicum's funeral in Kanab, Utah, Feb .
weapons," it reports.While pretending to be objective, the Times' description of the
scene plays on many of its readers' prejudices. After the
service there were "cowboys on horseback and members of
so-called patriot groups wearing camouflage and carrying small
their office"The Times did quote one rancher from Nevada, Diana Clark, at the
funeral. "All of us ranchers feel like we're backed into a corner,"
she said. "And it's hard to get anyone to acknowledge our needs,
and so they gave us a platform."
At least 22 smaller protests against the killing of Finicum took
place Feb. 6, from Florida to Washington. One common placard was
"Hands Up, Don't Shoot," a slogan first popularized by
protesters against police brutality after the killing of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. At events in John Day and
Prineville, Oregon, dozens of local ranchers participated.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have now indicted 16 supporters
of the occupation with conspiracy to "prevent by force,
intimidation and threats, officers and employees of the United
States Fish and Wildlife Service . from discharging the duties of
97720.discussion.at the wildlife refuge.
The list of what the indictment calls "overt acts" to further
the conspiracy is proof itself that the prosecution is a frame-up.
The first "act" it lists is an Oct. 5 meeting where Ammon Bundy
warned Harney County Sheriff David Ward that if the Hammonds
went to jail there could be "extreme civil unrest."
Although the occupiers are not accused of pointing their weapons
at anyone, the indictment claims that they "brandished and
carried firearms." Oregon law allows the open carrying of firearms.
Bundy released a statement from prison Feb. 6, noting that the
occupation was civil disobedience. He encouraged those "who
disagree with my speech" or dislike his ideas to engage in civil
"If you do not advocate for government to tolerate ideas that it
hates, then the First Amendment and free speech mean nothing,"
he said. "Arm yourself with ideas. . Argue and disagree. Be free."
Supporters of the Hammonds continue to organize. A new online
petition calling on President Barack Obama to free the Hammonds
had
3,341 signatures as of Feb. 9. The Oregon Cattlemen's
Association is asking that donations be sent to: The Hammond
Family, c/o Sandra Carlon at US Bank, 493 N. Broadway, Burns, Oregon
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