In Africa property was not wealth, but people were. Though the concept of
"chattel slavery" was not the goal African tribal leaders did take slaves in
war. Indeed it was the goal of war especially in West Africa. That "people
as wealth" concept is precisely why so many African tribal leaders could
engage in the slave trade so readily. In fact that is precisely where the
Spanish, Portugese, British and other slave traders got their slaves for the
most part, from African tribal leaders.
Europeans engaged mostly on the coast and traded for slaves. They rarely if
ever in the early days ventured inland to get slaves or anything else.
Prior to European chattle slave trade many west African and even East
African tribes regularly sold captured slaves to Arab run nations as slaves.
That is the ugly truth about slavery not much discussed. But, the slave
trade never would have happened without the agency of black, African tribes
themselves.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2016 9:37 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
The word nation was imposed on them from without and it had to do with the imperialists dealing with them as groups. The word is not entirely inaccurate, though, insofar as it describes a group of people occupying a territory with a common language and customs. Whatever kind of community we are talking about, though, the word community describes it. Your description of group ownership is closer to the truth when talking about ownership of whatever commodities are being discussed. That is not to say that they had not achieved some amount of personal ownership and that personal property did not exist, but precolumbian North Americans had not come close to capitalist property relations. And by the way, if you think that capitalist property relations are human nature then you have just excluded all precolumbian North Americans from being human. However, whether it is a nation or a tribe or whatever they had developed distinct communities with consistent economic relations within those communities and those who were outside the community were just that, outsiders. They were other communities and did not participate in the economic relations of the community that regarded them as outsiders and so were available to make war on and to be treated as a resource themselves. Did they keep slaves? Not in the sense that the slaves were considered personal property or necessarily even community property. Outsiders were, indeed, captured and used as hostages. While they were being held they were, of course, put to work. If the community was nomadic chattel slaves were impractical because there was no good means of restraint. It would have been more of a matter of having to make the captives dependent on the captors so that they would not run away and then there was almost always a path to becoming a part of the community, that is, adoption. Actual captive chattel slaves would be seen in the two full blown civilizations that existed at the time. That was the Aztec and Incan empires. In those cases a state apparatus had been developed that was more capable of keeping and restraining slaves. In that case the slaves were more community property than personal property. It was a situation that was closely related to slavery in old world civilizations like Greece or Rome.
On 3/4/2016 10:41 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
It was my understanding that the American Indian tribes considered
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 to the winners.
Miriam
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 would behave been considered to be of different nationalities. Nevertheless,
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
ranchers participated.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
corner,"weapons," it reports.agitators.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
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 .
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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