You seem to think that history has stopped, that capitalism is the end
of history and we must make our peace with it. The trouble with that is
that so many times before that assumption has been made and the whole
society then collapsed. If you look around you it should be obvious that
capitalism has a lot of internal contradictions that are accumulating to
make it collapse too. If we concentrate on small cooperatives we will be
taken down with it. If we really want to make life better through and
after that collapse we had better get started on preparing for it and to
direct the collapse into something better. Hopefully it is not too late.
Marx's analysis of the internal contradictions of capitalism led to the
slogan, socialism or barbarism. I am so afraid that it may actually come
down to socialism or human extinction.
On 3/5/2016 3:51 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Absolutely. I have no quarrel with the fact that there have been many
cultures in which land was held in common. My point has been only that
although we can point to examples of cultural practises which illustrate
what we consider to be positive ways of behaving, and we know that people
are capable of these things, given where we are now, of the power structures
that exist, we need to think in very practical terms about how we can make
life better and it's a hard issue to contemplate. It feels to me like the
best we can do is small cooperative ventures, as many of them as we can
manage, whether they be manufacturing or farms or whole villages.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2016 8:38 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
Again, I'm talking about the notion of land as property. Also here you
Miriam are pointing to a post Columbian culture for there were no horses
prior to the Spanish bringing them here.
You do have points however that there warring peoples at play here. That is
true. And they had clashes between different cultures even pre-Columbus.
But Roger is most correct in his fundamental point that in North American
cultures, except for the Aztec and Mayan the land was "owned in common"
amongst the peoples and the wealth derived was shared or used in common.
It is very complicated however, to put rigid notions down on all of this
"combined and uneven" development.
For things didn't happen in a linear development as Marx seemed to suggest.
Simply, it was much more complicated than that though Marx did have some
very valuable contributions he wrote at a time were much of this was not
known.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 10:41 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
It was my understanding that the American Indian tribes consideredto the winners.
themselves to be nations. They fought each other for a reason. The
aggressor nation started a fight with another nation in order to take
what it had.
So
it wasn't individuals owning things. It was a whole group owning stuff
and wanting the stuff that the other group owned. I don't care what
terms one uses. I don't care if you use a word other than own. And I
don't care if what they wanted was land or horses or hides or women.
Or maybe they were fighting just for the fun of it? But they did take
some of the members of the vanquished tribe as slaves. The slaves belonged
MiriamFinicum.
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: Friday, March 04, 2016 9:04 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
Remember that
no one claimed that primitive communism was ever practiced outside
the community. And also remember that American Indians were not
practicing primitive communism at the time of the European invasion
and had not been practicing it for many thousands of years at least.
With that said, it is true that certain communities did control
certain territories and if you insist that it be called ownership then
you can call it ownership even if the members of the land controlling
community may not have understood the concept of ownership. However,
if the territory was own it was owned by the community as a whole and
it was exploited through the labor of the community for the benefit of
the community. That is, it was the means of production and when the
means of production is owned commonly and worked commonly by everyone
in the community then even though you, as a member of a capitalist
society, feel compelled to assign ownership to someone, even if the
someone is a collective, it is effectively not property at all.
On 3/3/2016 11:17 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
The anthropologists studied people in many parts of the world, but"owned"
that was after our own native peoples had been ethnically cleansed so
what we have are the stories of the American Indians themselves, and
their lives as observed by their conquerers. I gather that a tribe
owned a vast swathe of land through which it moved through the
seasons. Buut then they invaded each other's territories.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz
Comcast
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 10:00 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
Land as property was not a concept among North American Indians until
long after Columbus.
It does not mean however that they were "primatives" for lands were
highly cultivated and even forest lands were managed. But they were
so-to-speak in common, not by individual land holders, and for thecivilizations.
common good.
Now again I'm talking about North American cultures. There are
differences in some of the Mezo=-American (Aztecs, Mayans) and Inca
By the way before Columbus there were cities and cultures morethan one century.
advanced and more populated than in Europe at the time. In fact there
were one hundred million native americans before Columbus. But guns
and germs and steal destroyed about 98 percent of that population in
less
98 million people! The holocaust was astounding.limit of language.
have to scoot but there are some excellent books on this history and
they are "objective" too.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 9:48 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
But in some, people did own things and they used them as tokens of
wealth or power. Sometimes it was cows or shells. Some groups had
elaborite systems for evaluating wealth. I studied all of this stuff
in college so I can't remember all the details but there was great
variation in cultures.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz
Comcast
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 7:09 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
Again correct for the most part for these were for lack of better
words mutualist/communal societies.
Also in many indigenous societies there were no real notions of
private property including ownership of land itself.
It wasn't even a concept this private ownership of property that is.
Itwas indeed owned by all in common.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 10:11 PM
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
equally.of pattern was seen.Even in nearby New Guinea there were and still are hundreds of
languages in a very small area. These languages were unintelligible
to each other and effectively made 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 group.
The first group would have noticed more profound differences in
their 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
Once you got about half way across the continent the people wouldhave been considered to be of different nationalities. Nevertheless,
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
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 waswas mutually beneficial too.
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
That is, they had mutual interests and few conflicting interests.
Then the Europeans showed up and started deporting their criminals
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 or another. The power is
never distributed
murdered'variety.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 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,anarchist.
not 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 goal.
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
something in common.Scientific socialists hold that class society causes the state,will gradually transform from a means of administering people into
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 been removed and the state will fade away. That is, it
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
The main difference between those two camps is that the left-wingtalking about and that Chuck does not know enough about it himself
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
to 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]
[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
anarchist.Bakunin ...anarchy.
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,
who?
He then said that he was not an old anarchist, he was a new
selfishness.politics.anarchist.Then he threw around some words like death and destruction. Ivote for Bill Clinton.
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
what anarchism is.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
And if you take their claims of being anarchists as good coin Ifact, anarchist philosophy is completely incompatible with
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
out: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
2006.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
murdered'
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
farmers.cops."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
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
freed.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
ranchers participated.corner,"weapons," it reports.agitators.up.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 .
5.
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
The Times did quote one rancher from Nevada, Diana Clark, at
the funeral. "All of us ranchers feel like we're backed into
a
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
firearms.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 their office" 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
97720.discussion.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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