Weren't predominant? They were universal! When you point to cultures
that were at a more advanced stage of social and economic evolution you
are not showing that communal ism was not predominant. You are just
showing that society does evolve and that the evolution is uneven from
region to region and culture to culture. Again, you are lumping all
preliterate cultures together and seeing the different stages of social
evolution as just random differences. Again, you need not to point to
North American native cultures in comparison to aboriginal Australian
culture. You may as well point to present day North American culture to
contrast to Australian aboriginal culture. And, by the way, such
cultures are not necessarily a long time ago. They are just about
extinct now, but the extinction is recent and there is an
anthropological record of them. And according to some articles I have
read in Natural History magazine and Discover magazine it appears that
there are still some precontact cultures in Brazil. Being precontact,
though, it is difficult to determine anything about their culture, but
if the pattern continues from all other cultures that have been observed
they would be at an identifiable stage too. Since contact tends to
destroy aboriginal cultures anthropologists and the Brazillian
government are collaborating to keep them precontact. I do wonder if
that is worth it. They are probably doomed anyway and prohibiting
contact deprives us of some valuable cultural information.
On 3/4/2016 10:58 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
All I was saying was that the communal societies occurred a long time ago
and they weren't predominant. They're just one example of one way that human
beings can live together, but unfortunately, that way of living was not
permitted to survive.
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 8:40 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
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.Some were warlike. Some were competitive.
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.
Everyone had to labor in order for the members of the group to livesome garden of Eden fairy tale is essentially ethnocentrism. It is also
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
cultural myopia.
Guard against assuming that the way people do things in the narrowmembers.
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 actually
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
languages.And then, one has to consider just what kind of labor is involved.apple.
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
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
communism.In one area the people spoke in the same way while just a few milesgroup.
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
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
few 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.
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,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
Anarchists just call that goal anarchy and communists call it
variety.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
politics.been removed and the state will fade away.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
...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]
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
2006.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
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
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
rules.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
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
again.ranch.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
corner,"5.agitators.up.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
The Times did quote one rancher from Nevada, Diana Clark, at
the funeral. "All of us ranchers feel like we're backed into a
firearms.their office"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
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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