Blood: Appetite Comes With Eating.


HORMONAL DELIQUESCENCE WIPES OUT CIVILIZATIONS.

Dark Site Exposes Why & How Obama & Merkel Are Going To The Dark Side. When Practice Makes Perfect, Growing The Satanic Mind.

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 There used to be many civilizations. Some died, so that others could thrive. Today we have just one civilization. If it dies, it will have no replacement.

 The terrorizing, theocratic Roman empire crumbled: fascist makes stupid, stupidity kills. As the social order that had made Rome possible collapsed, its technological economy imploded too. The shock was terrible; most people died, often from starvation, and the unrest that a drastically reduced economy brought.

However, imperial Rome was replaced by the philosophical renaissance of the Franks in the north-west, and the Golden Age of Islam, over two-thirds of its territory. When the Han, or the Ming collapsed in China, they were replaced by the stronger civilizations of the Yuan and Manchu.

 Then, of course, the mighty civilizations of the Americas have now been fully replaced by much more successful successors.

 Transitions, though, can be extremely bloody. 95% of the original population of Mexico may have been annihilated in the process of creating the root of modern Mexico. The reasons for this massacre have been studied ever since queen Isabella outlawed the enslavement of Indians, and her grandson Charles outlawed further conquista (on the ground that conquista had caused a holocaust, whatever the exact reasons).

 The same cause as in Rome was at work, to some extent; these were technological societies. The Spaniards deliberately destroyed the highly technical lake gardening of the Aztecs, the core of their population, hence their power. The Inca empire, a highly efficient control and command communist system, was also dismantled by the Spaniards, for the same reason.

 Another well known cause of the holocaust was biological.

 The arrival in Peru of the Spanish Conquistador Pizarro and his 200 companions was preceded by smallpox (1532 CE).

 The Inca emperor got it, was disfigured, suffered, and then died from it. A civil war between his conflicted sons followed, while various epidemics kept ravaging the empire.

 American peoples’ genetics had absolutely no memory of smallpox, and was intrinsically all too weak to deal with Eurasian epidemics. Eurasia was a much bigger petri dish than the Americas, it was endowed with a much greater variety of microbes living in symbiosis with Eurasians (to this were added Euro-African diseases, such as malaria).

 So it felt as if the gods had deserted the Incas, while the awe of the conquistadores spread ominously.

 It is said that many were victims were sacrificed to the angry gods (some archeologists claim, say in Tucume).

 One thing is sure, Pizarro’s men, in probably the fiercest, craziest feat of military history, went on a blood frenzy at the battle of Cajamarca, killing and capturing perhaps more than 10,000 elite Inca troops, in one shock assault that baffles the imagination.

 Before the battle, the 200 hard core conquistadores could see in the night the thousands of campfires of the Inca imperial army, at least 80,000 strong. Those 200 Spaniards were probably the world’s most highly trained killers. Still, many, learning of their capitan’s maniacal plan, “wetted themselves in their terror“. However, the next day, on command, the Spaniards turned into frantic killing machines. Pizarro was even wounded as he saved the Inca’s life from one of his crazed-out armored subordinate. (Atahualpa was more useful alive, as he was still the official Inca.)

 In some quarters it is fashionable to either excuse, or excoriate murderers because of their upbringing, or atavism (their ancestors having supposedly endowed them with the wrong genetics).

 However the most sophisticated evidence is that most evil arise from situations, not from individuals. The worst culpability comes from those who created the situation, not from whom the French call “second couteaux” (second knives, secondary assassins, a sort of pietaille, foot soldiers).

 For example high level executives on Wall $treet and in American industry who collaborated with Hitler on a gigantic scale, of their own free will, were in a completely different, much higher criminal class than even the worst, most criminal French collaborators. The former were giants, the later irrelevant rats, in the greater scheme of things (although thousands were rightfully executed, be it only to write a warning in history. Executing hard core criminals, at that level of criminality, is certainly no crime. And I never read of one case where the innocent family of a French collaborator was killed with him…) 

 Interestingly, some of the most notorious actors of Vichy France had been authentic heroes in WWI. They were condemned and executed. They typically died, shouting:”Vive la France!” Many thought they were out to heroically mitigate a terrible situation. Sometimes, maybe they did. The director of IBM France was viewed as the worst collaborator, in charge of finding where all the hundreds of thousands of Jews in France were hiding.

 He never quite discovered where the Jews were. He was diligent, instead, establishing a draft list of all young French males, to reconstitute a full French army, starting with North Africa in 1943. When the Nazis found out it was too late. They tortured him to death.

 Some of the top Americans plutocrats who worked with Hitler were crucial enticers and enablers. Without them, Hitler would simply not have been, at least not to the letha level he got to. They deserve their title of admirers of Pluto in full.

 Henry Ford was awarded by Hitler in person the Grand Cross of the German Eagle on his 75th birthday, 30 July 1938. Ford had given extravagant amounts of financing to Hitler, starting in 1920. It is probably him who taught Hitler antijudaism (Hitler had Jewish comrades in WWI).

 Charles Lindbergh was awarded the Order of the German Eagle with Star 19 Oct 1938. James Mooney, General Motor’s chief executive for overseas operations, was awarded Order of the German Eagle 1st Class. Thomas John Watson, founder of IBM, was granted the 2nd class badge and star in June 1937 at the International Chamber of Commerce Conference in Berlin. Watson managed the Nazis’ computing operations all the way through until their surrender in May 1945. All his 35 factories in Germany were left operational, thanks to very careful targeting of German cathedrals rather than American factories in Germany.

 The worst of the worst, the Bushes, Brown Brothers, Harriman and many others, knew that one of Pluto’s greatest assets is invisibility; they stayed in the shadows as much as possible as did giants such as Standard Oil, Texaco, General electric, DuPont, Rockefeller Chase, JP Morgan, Warburg Manhattan bank, etc. When the decision of making Hitler Kanzler was taken, January 4, 1933, the Dulles brothers were there. (Considering how useful that decision was for the USA, they fully deserve to be honored to this day with their own airport! As I wrote this, 50,000 Orthodox Jews made themselves very small, and scurried deep into the closest holes they could find…)

 Those leaders who are after real goodness ought to avoid encouraging or inciting evil situations, instead of insisting on witch hunts.

 One can presently observe Obama and Merkel going over the Dark Side, day after day, doing so because of situations they created themselves. Characteristically they have found entire families of innocent witches to hunt down in Greece, Spain, Yemen, or Pakistan. A way to reassure themselves about their own goodness, while pursuing much larger evils. OK, I concede that it is better to be starved by Angela, than bombed by Barack.

 The evil is not just in the details of the circumstances, it is in the hormonal universes they can suddenly inflate.

  Cosmological Inflation probably does not work (I claimed, and will claim again in a coming essay). But psycho-hormonal inflation surely does happen, especially as far as evil is concerned. Perseverance is diabolical, said the Romans. But it is not just about the inertia of the task started. It is about the inertia of hormonal states, especially when they have created, as an infernal feedback, the demand for even of the brain structures that create them.

 One saw something like that, an inflation of evil, with the First Crusade, when the would-be crusaders, although they were on the attack, massacred countless Jews in the “Roman” empire (aka Francia, Germania, etc.; ). The Crusaders were just warming up. To become destroyers of Muslims, they had to grow their Dark Side. Killing European Jews, who had lived there longer than Christianism existed, was a form of hormonal foreplay. It was not foreplay for sexual games. It was foreplay for homicidal games. something much more important, evolutionary speaking.

 Human beings, the mindsets of human beings, rest on hormonal states. Nietzsche used to say that men thought with their stomach. Nietzsche was probably inspired by Napoleon’s “an army marches on its stomach“. In truth brains work within neurohormonal states.

  Everybody has seen movies of sharks progressively entering a blood frenzy. Humans are the same, just worse, because, unlike sharks, they make up stories.

  Blood calls for blood. Watch Obama drawing his ever longer assassination lists, deliberately sacrificing entire families of innocents (New York Times, May 29, 2012). What for? To be re-elected? To make the USA the only country in history where the ruler deliberately killed innocent families, in cold blood, in countries far away, for all to see, as if assassination were the highest possible value, the one projected from the bully pulpit?

 Even Hitler did not cross that Rubicon of abject horror (although Hitler was a piece of trash of very high order, he was careful to never leave traceable orders; in a court of justice, he could have been only convicted of crimes against mankind: wars of aggression, etc. He could not have been convicted of direct assassination orders… OK, except, however, for the notorious “Commissar Order“, the one ordering the execution of all Soviet Commissars).  

 Speaking of the Nazis, they reached such a high state of murderous insanity that they kept on fighting, even when it was clear they had lost the war. Why? Because the Nazis were in a mass hormonal state of homicidal fury. At the end of their reign of horror, when it was too difficult to find Jews, Untermenschen, or Allied troops to kill, they would readily kill the Germans themselves.

 Massacre call for massacre hormones, and the appropriate brain structures to produce them. Those juice up best after warming up to the situation. It is known that, when the brain becomes good at something, it grows the organs that support this activity. Thus, to some extent, the activity makes the brain. Watch Obama in his White House, drawing his assassination lists. Is your family on it? Why not? How quaint Nixon was, with his “enemy list“.

 Male canaries grow a song brain, just to sing. Exercising rats grow neuronal networks as needed. Taxi cab drivers in London grows their hippocampus, to learn the map of every single street in London. Is Obama growing a murder brain?

 The Mayas, were victims of a super drought, and they lost ecological control completely. Mayan hydraulics had worked for several millennia. Massive overpopulation (ten millions?) played a role in the loss of control. Soon Maya engineers were reduced to use very inferior wood for necessary construction, including for the gigantic canal and dam system.

 Then an abominable civil war was started, incidentally, by a secondary queen. The balance between the two leading city-states was disrupted. Fire and sword finished what the drought had started. It took nearly three centuries for consuming the entire Maya civilization. When the Spaniards landed, five centuries later, it was a ruin of its former self.

 The Maya civilization was a highly technological, hydraulic dependent society. Such societies are highly brittle. If the technology that supports them is struck down, the population immediately starves, and said immediate starvation prevents the re-establishment of the technology that made it possible. An example is Rome. When the German Vandals invaded Africa, they cut off the wheat supply of Rome, and the city shrunk, not to recover until recent decades.   

 Just as blood calls blood, war calls war. That’s why there are periods of peace, and periods of war. When an hormonal state of war has arisen among the masses, it’s hard to stop.

 Obama, as he deliberately targets innocent families for assassination, on the other side of the Earth, just because they happened to be there, should also learn this: horror calls upon much more horror. Once one has taught one’s enemy that horror does not have to stop anywhere, one did not just give them ideas, one has lost the high moral ground, essential to win wars.

 Bin Laden, by attacking civilian objectives in the USA did exactly what the CIA had taught him to do. It fit reasonably well the Qur’an interpreted all too literally. But bin Laden had practiced in Afghanistan, under American guidance. Thus 9/11 was a feedback loop.

By making the targeting of innocent families for assassination the call of the highest officer in the land, Obama is taking a civilizational risk, that no civilization took before. I really don’t know of any major leader, in the last 3,000 years, keen to be viewed as a responsible assassin of families, or responsible for assassinating families, as a matter of state. It is actually a direct violation of the State of Law doctrine, well known of the ancient Romans.

 True, many leaders did just that, assassinating innocent families. Charles Taylor, ex-president of Liberia, 64 year old, just got 50 years at la Hague, for such crimes. But Taylor did what criminal leaders like him did in the past; he tried his best, to hide his crimes. Whereas the Committee Of The 100 Murderous Ones operates in such full view in Washington DC, that even the New York Times finally detected its existence (I have spoken of it for a very long time, while the NYT ignored it…)

 In an instance of comparison, emperor Tiberius, who succeeded Augustus as “Princeps” (“First Man”… in the senate!) is widely viewed as bloody, and tyrannical. However, an examination of the historical record shows otherwise.  In the whole twenty three years of Tiberius’ reign, no more than fifty-two persons were accused of treason. Almost half escaped conviction. Others were extremely culprit, some even having killed one, and possibly both, of the emperor’s sons, who were themselves the two most major Roman politicians (that was discovered 8 years after the second poisoning!) Four innocent people who were condemned fell victims to the excessive zeal of the Senate, not to the Emperor’s alleged tyranny. We don’t know of ONE assassination ordered by Tiberius. Not one. Whereas the New York Times speaks about “lists” of assassination by Obama. A Death Panel of the murderous 100 sits at the White House. “1984” feels quaint. 

 Nevertheless, thanks to Tacitus’s propaganda, Tiber’s, and Rome’s reputation, have been forever marred.

 Too bad. Faced with a gigantic debt crisis in the entire Roman empire, Tiberius did exactly what I say should be done now. An enormous, generalized default was followed by a gigantic government stimulus and re-financing program. It was so successful, that even Tacitus has to admit it!

 Merkel, as she destroys Europe by refusing the only solutions available, while letting accomplices accuse scapegoats, and stuffing the culprits (banks) with free money, is herself letting an intolerable situation grow ever more insufferable, the sort of situations that lead to war. In that sense she is like these Maya leaders who, around 600 CE refused the only solutions available. Just as Obama, she chose plutocracy as her friend. Blacker than  Obama himself, she adds coal to her hellish recipe.

 In the 1300s, Europe enjoyed a huge population, and faced an ecological disaster. Forests had been devastated, but society depended completely on wood, for construction and energy. Leaders took dramatic ecological measures. Wars and plagues were not avoided, and Europe lost half of its population in a few years (around 1350 CE). On the positive side, the forests grew again.

 At some point nasty situations will always careen out of control. That is why nasty situations have to be defused, as soon as they are detected. (Something Merkel is deliberately not doing as she claims, disingenuously, that only thus, by creating an insufferable situation, will other countries reform; she forgets to mention that most of the so called “aid” is a subsidy for the plutocratic system, where it circles right back. In other words, she is a liar.)

 The real Satans are those who could have done something about it, but refused to, be it only because nobody called them out for the trash they became.

 At this point, we observe a moral collapse of leadership in all too many places. It’s no coincidence: miscreants encourage each other, be it only by playing real dumb. It is easier to be a criminal than a honest person, especially when plutocracy dangles its fruits of evil, for the taking. 

 Civil war in the Inca empire, the exactions of the Aztecs on surrounding nations, Rome ethical collapse in guise of Christianity, Bagdhad’s, the Hans, and other empires’ degeneracy before the Mongols showed up, all played crucial roles in their collapse. So it was for the Mayas’ implosion. 

 A civilization can be destroyed by a cataclysm (Crete) or a hateful enemy (Carthage). However, most of the time, civilizations fail morally first. Just watch the news, and worry.

***

Patrice Ayme

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P/S: L ‘appétit vient en mangeant (Rabelais in Gargantua, 1534 CE). Captured by Shakespeare in 1600 CE as “Appetite comes with eating!

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25 Responses to “Blood: Appetite Comes With Eating.”

  1. Paul Handover Says:

    I hesitated a long time before administering a ‘like’ to this essay! Because when one looks back at history it is difficult to ‘like’ what has gone on over the centuries. Still cogitating over the scale of the disasters that have preceded these present times …. and the full import of your early sentences, “Today we have just one civilization. If it dies, it will have no replacement.”
    Very powerful essay! Paul

    Like

    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Thanks Paul!
      Thanks for overcoming your distaste and appreciating my work.
      One can appreciate a gastrointestinal surgeon, without having to celebrate intestinal content.

      Yes, nowadays, as I have more than one reader, I often hesitate to write some things. One wants to keep friendly relationships. Self censorship is a temptation. More than one person used to comment here, or by personal mail (something I do not like, because I esteem ANY critique, even the most idiotic, as one can learn much, and more, from the largest mistake!) have disappeared.

      One gentleman who used to comment a lot got absolutely enraged after the crazy murders in Norway. He apparently thought I supported the crazy bomber/shootist racist. How he got there, I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I was personally bombed, in France (of all places!) by similar crazed out fascist racists. I am also not very masochist, and I can testify that being caught in a detonation is mighty disagreeable. Anyway, he disappeared, never to be seen again. Too bad.

      Self censorship is a philosophy-killer. Better for a philosopher to decide how to cultivate impopularity, in other words, being the opposite of Romney-Obama-Merkozy, and those who have 3,000 friends on facebook, from telling what was on their pizza last night. Nietzsche said he was doing philosophy with a hammer. But hammers are all too neolithical. Nowadays, we have H bombs. And even if we refuse to think about it, we still have H bombs. The messanger cannot be spurned, just because the message is unsavory!

      I am in what some will view as the unfortunate, and certainly unheard of before, position of having to do philosophy with H bombs

      The disaster that preceded were teaching experiences. Preceding civilizations never threatened the entire biosphere. but this is the case now. This civilization may well go down with (most of) the biosphere itself, either as cause, or consequence. That’s why there will be no replacement.

      As we gaze upon the strangely silent inter-stellar medium, no doubt the conclusion to be drawn is that, as a civilization is strong enough to jump off a planet, the planet gets often disintegrated by that all too vigorous action!

      PA

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  2. Old Geezer Says:

    Much of the history of the Conquistadors is very well documented in Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel” which I highly recommend. It was not a pretty time to be a Native American. And, since the Spanish were quite thorough with the torch, we lost a lot of very important knowledge of agriculture that was most useful to the American landscape. In fact, the “milpas” planting model is superior rin many ways to the plowed field approach of the Europeans. Only the Americans had no beasts of burden and thus invented a different (better) way to farm.

    Flipping forward a few centuries, while I deplore the sensless killing of women, children, and innocents via drone, if this is the new paradigm for warfare, I’ll take it over the approach used in the 20th century.

    It is estimated that 100 million people were killed in the first half of the 20th century. That;s a lot of people. And we DO need to ferret out the few bad dudes who want to do us harm. We cannot just do nothing.

    Perhaps the drones of the future will have laser stun guns and a huge grappling hook, so these folks can be scooped up and taken into custody, given a trial, and judged innocent or guilty.

    Like we used to do for American citizens.

    Like

    • Paul Handover Says:

      OGP, I sense a level of reluctance in me continuing commenting, based on the fact that I am a foreigner (aka Green Card holder) living in America; I cannot claim any form of birthright!

      But what I can’t stop feeling, especially after having read the NYT piece that Patrice linked to, is a deep pity that the USA, a country that has done so much to fight for freedom and justice around the world, is presently going through such a moral failure in terms of how it deals with its enemies.

      As Patrice wrote over on LfD, “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to refuse to see it.”

      Like

      • Patrice Ayme Says:

        I approve 100% what Paul said. Except for the “Green Card” thingie. In truth, we are all world citizens, and if a guy in Washington decides to kill people around the world, grabbing for himself, as he did the powers of a Roman Consul, it concerns us all.

        OK, some who read my site very carefully (and there is at least one, namely me) will notice that I have reached new heights of hypocrisy, because I did expose, in the past, the judicial powers of the top elected officials of the Roman republic, the Consuls. I explained how that power allowed the republic to live 5 centuries (or 8, if one wants to consider, as the Romans did, the Principate as a form of republic, something for which very strong arguments can be made).

        I even explained why and how the life and death powers of the Consuls extended worldwide… OUTSIDE of Rome. And how good this all was.

        I wanted Obama to apply that to banksters, not families in Yemen! I wanted the banksters fiercely arrested, their possessions, including their houses, seized. Not exploded, seized.

        However, when families are targetted to kill with the alleged miscreants, inside their homes, those powers are clearly exceeded. I do understand that force has to be applied. But philosophical force is deliberately not applied against fundamentalist Islam, so as to keep the conflict alive, thus justifying supporting ultra exploitative regimes (Saudis, etc.), and thus preventing to have same said philosophical force to be used against said exploitative philosophy.

        This then allows Obama’s friends in the plutocracy to keep on hyper exploiting, worldwide, same as before, thus cultivating resentment, fundamentalist Islam, and the military-industrial complex.

        What we are dealing with here is an ecology of evil, and the arbitrary killer drones’ strikes fit right in it.
        PA

        Like

    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Old Geezer Pilot: First a warning about Diamond: he himself admitted, much later, that Guns Germs & Steel had a bias, and a message attached to this bias. Another thing: specialists of the period, especially of the Incas, found gross errors in GGS. I did myself when I read it (that was just after first printing). I scribbled furious comments on the margin, but I have moved since, and I don’t have my copy of GGS under hand.

      “Collapse” has a completely different philosophy. Instead of lauding fate, as in GGS, “Collapse” exposes how different philosophies led to different fates.

      That later message, I understand. I was brought up in great part in a non Euro-American setting, and I know that philosophies are the most important differences.

      The subject of drone attacks deserves its own essay. Let me just say that it’s not because it can be done, that it should be done. It reminds me of the opening scenes of the movie “Terminator”. It’s not because the Nazis could attack other countries, and burn people by the millions, that they were right to do so.

      The choice Obama made is terrifying. A terrifying precedent. What prevents Putin or whatever-his-name in China, or North Korea, to do the same?

      Two of either Britain’s, or France’s (100% French) strategic nuclear subs, could annihilate at least 25% of the population of the USA. What prevents France and Britain to roam the world with drones, killing whoever they don’t like? OK, they don’t have yet the drone capability of the USA (and that is the only part of the military where the USA is drastically in advance)

      China has at least two strategic nuclear subs, India has one, and is building more, and Russia has even more than the USA, and is building more… All these gathering threats can support vigorous death panels a la Obama, deciding who to kill, around the world.

      A French super cop, who worked long in collaboration with Mali in counter-terrorism, was saying last night on French TV that all major countries dispose off the people who are really in the way, although France would not touch “intellectuals”… But some of the others do target intellectuals. And he did not want to say which countries.

      So watch what you are writing, that drone may soon be flying for you, in a sense you may not like in the end.
      PA

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      • Old Geezer Says:

        Look left, look right, look UP.

        I will incorporated that into my routine. Never know when a drone may try to take me out. After all, I post subversive ideas, and the oligarchs may not like it.

        The common thread in “Collapse” is that all the civilizations that went before us ultimately destroyed the environment upon which life depended.

        Then they moved on.

        Where shall we move after we have done the same?

        Like

        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          Hmmm… I may have to unearth my copy of “Collapse” at some point. Methinks Diamond recognized that the Japs and Teutons took fierce ecological measures, and the situation of the forests got re-established. Diamond did not mention France. However there the population was much higher, from lack of wars, and the ecological dispositions the fiercest. They were the same as in some Pacific islands: taboo, don’t go there, or you may incur the death penalty.

          As I said the collapse into starvation (~ 1320s), wars (~ 1334), and plague (1348) happened nevertheless… And it was a pan-European (Europe in the widest sense imaginable) phenomenon… A reader kindly sent me the Danish renewable energy plan. I will comment on a separate comment…

          PA

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        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          OGP. Answer: We shall be recycled, back in the ocean.

          The temptation to self censorship is great. Here I am, “The Economist” wants me to publish one of my comments there on facebook. And I am hesitating. Not that what I said in that comment is false, but it could be easily misconstrued. There is something as one outrage too far, my entire life screams at me…
          PA

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  3. Fighting pet homelessness, one animal at a time. « Learning from Dogs Says:

    […] much longer except to ask you to go across to Patrice Ayme’s Blog and read his recent essay, Blood: Appetite Comes With Eating.  It’s a very erudite, and deeply upsetting, commentary on something I touched on in a […]

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  4. Martin Lack Says:

    Apologies for being so late to arrive. WordPress says (above-left) that I am following this blog, but I have not been getting any emails (and yours is not listed on my “Blogs I Follow” page). However, I have now found and rectified the source of the problem on my “Reader” page…

    Anyway, where to start? This is a fascinating ramble through human history that exhibits a slightly odd fascination with Nazi Germany (have you heard of Godwin’s Law?). However, taking things in the order presented:
    Rome was surely not replaced by anything but the Dark Ages. A vacuum later filled by Islamist expansion into Europe and much later by philosophical and scientific Enlightenment facilitated by Christian belief in a rational Universe; itself building on the mathematical achievements of Islamic and Chinese scholars.

    With regard to Adolf Hitler and Henry Ford; this is the first time I have seen anyone seriously suggest that Ford influenced Hitler rather than vice versa. However, we will be able to resolve this, if it can be established which one of them was the first to read and believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as this was the excuse for anti-Semitism in the early 20th Century (and still is in the Islamic world today). The USA quite clearly took Nazi scientists and used them to pursue its rocket and space program, but, to suggest that Hitler was a Frankenstein monster created in an American laboratory; this is stretching history beyond its elastic limit, surely?

    As for the Crusades, I have recently re-discovered much about this period from a combination of sources; and none of it has been particularly pleasant. There was a great deal of histrionics, manipulation of ignorant people and/or promises of sins forgiven that was peddled by leaders on both sides. However, even if more blood has been shed in the name of gods; it is still only to be found on the hands of mere humans. Faith is not the problem. The problem is man’s inhumanity to man.

    At the end of the day (and the blog), I agree with you, that we have good grounds to be concerned. Money fetishism is the god of many today; and it is far more dangerous than any other false god that has gone before because it is elevates the self – not the collective – interest; and it perpetuates the myth that humans are not part of the natural world. It is a delusion that will eventually kill us all (i.e. unintended ecocide) unless we can rouse people from their catatonic state of paralysis. Unlike the drug-induced incapacity of the human sacrifices in Peru, this modern laissez-faire attitude, illusion of invulnerability and/or unwarranted optimism is, I suspect, more like the effects of smoking or injecting heroin (not that I have done either you understand?).

    Like

    • Old Geezer Says:

      And at the end of the day, what is money? It has no intrinsic value, so it is worth what someone else will give in exchange for it. It is a store of past efforts for future rewards, gratification deferred, if you like.

      So is the worship of it any better or worse than the worship of a God or an Idol? Both involve trading off present time activity and hoping for something valuable in the future.

      And doing either to excess is (IMHO) foolhardy. But in moderation, who can judge?

      I like to use the toilet paper analogy for money – you never want to run out, that;s for sure. You would like to have enough to get you through the week until you can get more. But there comes a point where you have more than you need and it just takes up valuable space in the closet, space that could be better used.

      Well, that’s how I see it anyway.

      Like

      • Martin Lack Says:

        As much as I like your toilet paper analogy (which works quite well), I prefer Douglas Adams’ take on the subject:
        “…Many solutions were suggested for this problem [of people being unhappy], but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

        The love of money is a relentless and merciless tyrant. Just as advertisers thrive on making people feel dissatisfied with what we have, the love of many can never be satisfied; we always want more: Even when you have more than you actually need (or can possibly use), there is always someone else who has more than you; and that little voice in your ear spurs you on to better yourself… I may not have money but I know what it would do to me if I did: I am reminded of this innate tendency lurking within me whenever I walk down a crowded shopping street; I just have to get ahead of the people in front of me. I think it is a form of insanity (or may be just the outgrowth of an inferiority complex).

        Like

        • Patrice Ayme Says:

          Dear Martin: it’s not just about little pieces of paper. It’s mostly about power, transmitted in glass, worldwide. Get enough of these photons sent your way, and your servitors will be numerous, your accommodations excellent. It’s better to travel business, and drive a sport BMW, no comparison. On a mountain road, behind a mobile home, going from 20 mph to 80 mph in three seconds is exhilirating. Same for travelling in private jets.

          And a dark little secret about intellectuals: if you see one, search for the money, or the power behind it. In more than 95% of cases, there was some at the outset. Nietzsche was fed and lodged all over the triangle Torino-Engadin. Nice by a very wealthy German woman. Even Einstein was from a pretty rich family of industrials.Newton was not poor, and became very rich. Montaigne was part of the rich and famous nobility. Caesar, more than rich. even Socrates lived off his wife, and his inheritance (he admitted). Larry Summers had two Nobel Prizes in his immediate family (not that he is anything but an idiot, but he was, still is, widely viewed as a genius).
          True Marie Curie did not have a bathroom, but she was associated to power in other ways, at the outset. verily power out of nowhere is a rare sight. Wittgenstein may have shown up on Russel (superich and powerful)’s doorstep, but he was from one of the richest families in Austria.

          Faraday would not have been Faraday, but for the king’s purse. Same for the huge galaxy of intellectuals prospering in 17C century France. I could go on like that for pages.

          Actually, it’s the richest countries which have the richest intellectuals, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia and the USA, would I add perfidically.

          True too much money makes one fall into the Dark Side, and entire countries, having fallen into plutocracy, can only be deeply idiotic. But not enough power does not make a critter brainy. Far from it. One needs time to think, and time is money. One needs the means to have access to more wisdom than the commons.

          The solution of humanity’s problems immediately ahead will come from more wisdom, and that too is a form of power. Potential power, but power nevertheless, as the Quantum says.
          PA

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      • Old Geezer Says:

        Agree, Martin. The advertisements which are RELENTLESS are designed to make us feel inadequate. SHOP till you DROP.

        Which is one reason why I do not watch TV.

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  5. Paul Handover Says:

    If you don’t follow Simon Johnson and James Kwak over at Baseline Scenario, then do go across and read http://baselinescenario.com/2012/05/31/jamie-dimon-and-the-fall-of-nations/ and especially the many angry comments.

    Simon’s Post is in many ways, an echo of what Patrice has written above.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Paul: Thank you for the reference! Simon Johnson is how we met… I have not looked at his blog in a while, because he sounded like a bit repetitive, and I did not like his superficiality about the euro. However that essay is very good. Maybe I look at the comments later, and try to add my own, to infuriate plutocrats and their obsequious servants.

      Reducing S. Johnson to being an echo of mine is beyond very flattering. But, indeed, these guys long barked up the wrong tree. The real tree is the plutocratic effect, and that’s in the middle of the situation in which we are.

      Actually the energy-ecological crisis looms ominously over the minds, so that has reinforced the activation of the fascist instinct, especially in the elites. Pretty obvious in the uSA since ray-Gun came to power (to borrow OGP’s semantics).

      By coincidence, I got the book “Why Nations Fail” today, after looking inside for quite a while.

      I do not like the word “extractive”. Because it’s a euphemism. “Extractive” is too geological. The proper term is EXPLOITATIVE.
      And even that may be too weak. Real plutocrats are mainly into inflicting pain on others. They start with envy, and that is why they have big yachts, big jets, etc. even why they make a show of getting away with anything. The daemon Dimon secretly enjoys being in the limelight, outrageous, flaunting his violation of the very charter of the Federal Reserve board he sits on. Just because he can, and you can’t.
      PA

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  6. Martin Lack Says:

    Dear Patrice, I am not sure if your recent reply to me was in fact a reply to my earlier comment? I think it may be since it appears to suggest a link to Nazi Germany to most who are wealthy and a link between wealth and intellect? Please forgive me if I am over-simplifying; and let’s agree to move on from Nazi Germany…

    Your second point is far more interesting: If there is a link between wealth and intellect (but not necessarily wisdom), what is it? Is it evidence of a superior gene pool (which aristocrats guarded very carefully even though the had no knowledge of genetics); or is it evidence of persistent inequality of opportunity? If it were the latter, I think the socialist-inspired experimentation with the UK’s education system that started in the late 60s has demonstrated comprehensively (pun very much intended) that a one-size-fits-all policy does not serve the best interests of the majority. Everyone may be born with equal human rights and should be given equal opportunity; but it is quite clear that not everyone is born with the same innate ability and dumbing-down education to the lowest common denominator was and is the wrong policy.

    Similarly, whilst I have a great deal of sympathy with the tripartite motto of the French Revolution, I do not approve of their methods; or the way they stoked up resentment against the wealthy by focussing on their flaws. What all humans need is the emotional and intellectual honesty to admit that we are all equally imperfect and, rather than seek to bring others down, we should seek to raise others up so that everyone can make the best of themselves; and those that cannot do so (for whatever reason) are supported out of simple human compassion. This should result in something better than a selfish meritocracy where poverty is equated with laziness or stupidity (as Mitt Romney appears to do).

    I agree with you that too much power is held in the hands of an elite; who have formed an exclusive club that is very hard to join. What I find fascinating is your apparent suggestion that membership may well be determined by individuals being born into it; making it a self-sustaining entity. I know a great many people much cleverer than me that would be very disappointed if this were true.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Martin: I am quite a bit under the weather at this point, and I have varied duties (such as taking care of my also indisposed daughter, we seem to have had a case of stomach flu, with various doctors visits, as dehydration is a serious problem in a 2 year old). So I will not be very talkative.

      The basic relationship between wealth and intellect is not complicated: one needs power to be free to think, and wealth to gather experience (a generalized form of wealth). The difference between the baboon and the mussel is all about power. and the power to do what? To use nature’s laws to one’s advantage. Brains work, because there is such a thing as physics.

      The question of “the methods of the French revolution’ is vast. Let me just say that if the plutocrats had not tried a war of extermination of the French people in 1792, things would have been different. You can find an essay, on my site, of the declaration of the Duke of Brunswick, in 1792, head of the combined plutocratic forces (Prussia, Austria, Britain, etc.). Brunswick threatened to Auschwitz Paris. (So when Germans come around and say their culture has nothing to do with it, they should go back, and study some more! Nazism was about the way German speaking officials talked in 1792, and 2012…)

      However, Brunswick was defeated at Valmy, not far from Paris in September 1792. The next day, the national assembly voted the establishment of the republic.

      To heap spite on the French revolution is part of the Wall $treet propaganda machine, as is forgetting that its mood and situation owes a lot to various holocausts, tried or true.
      PA

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  7. Old Geezer Says:

    “Too much money in the hands of the elite.”

    Precisely.

    When 1% own half of the total assets of the USA, and takes one-quarter of her income, money ceases to circulate and we end up where we are now.

    Even Henry Ford (no enlightened liberal by any sense of the word) KNEW he had to pay his workers enough money for them to buy his cars, thus forming a new user base.

    So here we sit with the NEW plutocrats who have not even produced a car or steel or a telephone system but who have captured all the money. We are bogged down because the workers do not earn enough to purchase more goods and services.

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    • Paul Handover Says:

      Hence why I was so impressed with the talk given by Nick Hanauer , see http://learningfromdogs.com/2012/05/29/inequality/

      But the main purpose in writing this comment was to draw readers’ attention to a recent item on Naked Capitalism, see http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/06/obamas-and-brennans-kill-list.html

      Think I’ll take a dog for a walk just to remind me of a bit of normality!!

      Like

      • Patrice Ayme Says:

        Dear Paul:
        thanks for the link to Naked Capitalism. Nixon knew that keeping his “enemies list” had no force of law. it was mostly a way for him to turn around the law.
        But apparently Obama reached the conclusion he has the right to kill USA citizens, as he wish, whenever he wishes. He has got to know something about the true flow of power in this society that we do not (namely that some can get away with murder), and got a bit carried away.

        Lettres de cachet” were the main proximal pretext for the French revolution. Sade, and his apparently very loud voice, was instrumental in this. He was jailed in the Bastille (in quarters comfortable enough to have a library). He screamed that “On tue les gens ici!”, and the people believed him (it was completely false).

        “Lettres de Cachet” were very rarely used. They allowed the chief executive, the monarch, to jail an individual without going through the normal justice system. They were generally used to protect those who were well connected from judicial inquiry. although Voltaire and Sade fell victims to them.

        It backfired seriously in the case of Sade…
        PA

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    • Old Geezer Says:

      Yes, I read Hanauer’s speech that he did on TED. He is right about the “flat-earth” type myth we have swallowed about the rich being the job creators.

      How to disseminate the truth to the rest of the world?

      Like

      • Patrice Ayme Says:

        Dear Old Geezer Pilot: “How to disseminate the truth to the rest of the world?”
        Not to boast, but by having the ideas, as they are debated in this so far not very significant site, and its predecessor (“Tyranosopher.com”) spread about.
        Not that people can be struck by the truth and then go about, and do good. Not at all. Actually evil characters can read such a site, and stand it on its head, capturing much of its semantics, and diverting it to the exact opposite.

        (A presidential angel, full of change back to what it was before, just worse, passed by, its wings dripping with cash…)

        I got the book “Why Nations Fail“, and it seems to be an example of vaccination against the tried and true path (the word “plutocracy” is not found; “exploitative” is found, in quotes of other people, some nearly 500 years old, but the authors prefer the nebulous “extractive”).

        Plutocracies have won before. There are actually 18 centuries between the fall of the Roman republic (a near democracy) and the French First republic.

        The French republic was a true democracy, one man, one vote, which nearly gave the vote to women, but, which was born, as I pointed to, in the reply to Martin Lack, in the midst of an apocalypse.

        The republic sank quickly, body and soul, into the extreme expedients necessary to survive total war: France in 1792 was in the military situation of the Third Reich in 1945, if you will forgive this grotesque, but nevertheless accurate, comparison. The republic won, because it had the high moral ground (even with the abomination of the Terror).

        Then the leaders of the republic refused to follow (the Marquis de) Sade’s deep, excellent and of course very explicit recommendations, and next thing one knew, the plutocratic phenomenon was back by the backdoor, thanks to the Corsican bandit…
        PA

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      • Patrice Ayme Says:

        A side remark: Money is power. Not all power is money, but power can be converted into money, quite often. To be elected a representative of the People is quite powerful. Topologically, that’s very close to money. In other words, representative democracy is much of the way to plutocracy.
        Thus direct democracy will be preferred…
        PA

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