Freedom and the Indians

"Off goes the head of the king, and tyranny gives way to freedom. ...Then, bit by bit, the face of freedom hardens, and by and by it is the old face of tyranny. Then another cycle, and another. But under the play of all these opposites there is something fundamental and permanent - the basic delusion that men may be governed and yet be free." --H.L. Mencken

"The more I consider the condition of the white men, the more fixed becomes my opinion that, instead of gaining, they have lost much by subjecting themselves to what they call the laws and regulations of civilized societies." --Tomochichi, Creek Chief

"I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 16 Jan. 1787

"We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and other game. But you have come here, you are taking my land from me, you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live. Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again you say why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them." --Crazy Horse - Sioux

The Great Lie is that this is civilization. It's not civilized. It has literally been the most bloood-thirsty brutalizing system ever imposed upon this planet. ...Or if it does represent civilization, and that is truly what civilization is, then the Great Lie is that civilization is good for us. --John Trudell

Mary Rowlandson was taken captive [by "indians"] ...she rather shrewdly negotiated with her captors, bartered using her knitting needles to get food and ultimately to win their approbation ...And this is not that unusual. There were a number of women captives who either defended themselves, negotiated, or, extraordinarily, about a third of female captives actually chose to stay with their Indian captors, preferred the Indian life. --Author Susan Faludi on "The Terror Dream", Democracy NOW! 

Happiness is more generally and equally diffus'd among Savages than in civilized societies. No European who has tasted savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies. --Benjmin Franklin, 1770

"We [Indians] have always been freer than the white man, even when he first came here. ...

"The white world puts all the power at the top, Nerburn. ... When your people first came to our land they were trying to get away from those people at the top. But they still thought the same, and soon there were new people at the top in the new country. It is just the way you were taught to think." --Lakota elder Dan, Kent Nerburn, Neither Wolf nor Dog, New World Library, 2002, pg.157

The BIGGER Picture:

1. What well-known institution do other founders -- and well-known personalities throughout history -- warn against? Proof! They've ALWAYS been out to get you. And they did.

2. H.L. Mencken, U.S. founder James Madison, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry Kissinger, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, and Prof. Chalmers Johnson all explain the main factor we should fear. Can YOU find the common denominator? The REAL Fear Factor?

For the REALLY big picture, THESE articles.

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Good questions, Don!

1. "What is the explanation for the greater technological progress of the less civilized Euros?" --Don Duncan

Trade. The main thing pale-face contributed to the world was the mastery of trade including "money" and double entry bookkeeping which enabled specialization and division of labor, and thus the extremely efficient production of "stuff" as George Carlin was apt to put it.

This didn't come without extreme down-side effects, however.

Also the "scientific method," basically a simple technique for asking questions -- and finding and checking the answers.

2. "Why are native Americans poor, suicide prone, and alcoholic, more than all other ethic groups?" --Don Duncan

I'm not sure "all other ethic groups" applies. As far as "alcholic" apparently there is a genetic predisposition.

As to the rest, more than likely because their basic culture -- the culture of egalitarian hunter-gatherer freedom -- was forcibly replaced with regimented, fenced-in, pale-face hierarchy. Like this:

"The white world puts all the power at the top, Nerburn. ... When your people first came to our land they were trying to get away from those people at the top. But they still thought the same, and soon there were new people at the top in the new country. It is just the way you were taught to think."

"In your churches there is someone at the top. In your schools, too. In your government. In your business. There is always someone at the top and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you.

... "When you came among us, you couldn't understand our way. You wanted to find the person at the top. ... Your world was made of cages and you thought ours was, too. Even though you hated your cages you believed in them. ...

"Our old people noticed this from the beginning. They said that the white man lived in a world of cages, and that if we didn't look out, they would make us live in a world of cages, too." --Lakota elder Dan, Kent Nerburn, Neither Wolf nor Dog, New World Library, 2002, pg.157

3. "Why doesn't a freer, happier life translate into material wealth?" --Don Duncan

Well, to a certain extent, that question is backwards. The more important question is, why doesn't "material wealth" translate into a freer happier life?

At what might be called the "spiritual" level, there's a conflict between material goods and freedom. First, producing "stuff" requires self-discipline and takes hours from free spontaneous behavior. Further, a surplus of material goods requires not only time but also stable locations. Farms and factories for example. And then you have to maintain stuff.

Then there are the "addicitve" properties of the newest I-phone, the latest movie, hot showers, etc. which tends to "encourage" folks to spend even more hours of their lives accumulating "stuff." And/or "money" to buy stuff later.

At some point, the production of stuff should be efficient enough to free most people from the necessity of spending much time acquiring even an advanced level of "stuff."

At a talk he called, "I Dreamed I Was A Libertarian In My Maidenform Bra," L. Neil Smith suggested an 8 hour work week -- and that was July 31, 1982, at The Nevada Libertarian Party "CANDIDATE'S CONVENTION" in Las Vegas.

What went wrong? I'm sure you know. On the surface, it was this:

In the 1930s, Lord Keynes predicted that some day everyone would have a four-bedroom house, at which point, the American dream having been fulfilled, people would lose their incentive to work. Keynes believed that peoples' affluence would eventually outstrip their appetites--that their demand for goods and services would reach a plateau, beyond which the amount of money they spent would represent a smaller and smaller percentage of their income. Therefore, he argued, the government would have to adopt fiscal policies designed to keep people from hoarding too much of their income. --Unlimited Wealth by Paul Zane Pilzer, pg. 17

The banksters along with their government-gangster cronies just used that argument as another excuse to loot folks.

That affluence is exactly what's supposed to happen. But as you well know, Don, the "government" -- along with it's brown-nosers, suckups and hangers-on -- particularly the bankers -- have done quite well with adopting "fiscal policies dessigned to keep people from hoarding too much of their income." Translated, that becomss, "steal peoples' money -- and thus the hours of their lives spent earning money -- using taxation and inflation."

L. Neil was right but over-estimated the necessary work week. That difference is what the government/banking axis costs the average "citizen" who buys into the establishment bullshit. Bastiat nailed it:

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --Frederic Bastiat

There are now two "forces" that I see likely to seriously disrupt the current "order."

1. Income disparity caused by the "Reverse Robin Hood" effect of fiat money and fractional reserve banking, and

2. Increasing automation which will make most jobs obsolete, possibly reaching a tipping point in maybe 10 years according to Pew Research -- and maybe sooner according to gonzo futurist Ray Kurzweil.

And, closely related, will the robot revolution result in R2D2 or Terminator 2?

Your guess is as good as mine as to how this will all turn out.

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If YOU don't, who will?

We broadcast from the United Nations climate change talks in Doha, Qatar, where expectations for a binding agreement on limiting greenhouse gases are low despite global emissions at a record high. The two-week conference comes at the end of the last year that the binding emissions cuts agreed to under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol are in effect. Despite the Kyoto Protocol, a new scientific report out Sunday found global emissions of carbon dioxide reached a record high in 2011 and are likely to take a similar jump in 2012.

WAEL HMAIDAN: Well, as you mentioned, at the end of the century, we are—might face a 6-degree warming world. There is a wide scientific view that a 4-degree world will mean the collapse of human civilization... If we don’t do rapid action in the coming five to seven years, we are not going to meet our 2-degree target and come closer to a 4-degree world.  --Climate Cliff: As Global Emissions Peak, Hopes for U.N. Climate Deal in Doha at All-Time Low <http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/3/as_global_emissions_peak_hopes_for>

If you don't trust political bodies to fix the problem -- since the members need corporate campaign bribes to get elected -- you might consider this: Welcome to Alcohol Can Be a Gas! | Permaculture & Alcohol Can Be A Gas

And for a little more in-depth explanation, NEEDED: Unofficial Global Warming Fix | L's Little Letters

And for a suggestion for that fix, Unofficial Global Warming fix | L's Little Letters

The nature of "reality" via Bohr, Feynman, & Quantum Mechanics

"You decry "states", forgetting that without existing in a "state" you have no existence whatsoever (I am referring here to your earlier comment on how the root word "state" means "static" or unchanging)...that which is not in some recognizable state is an undefined cloud of random nothingness." --Greg

I see where the problem lies.

"States" are never unchanging -- except in someone's imagination. Those Rocky Mountains are slowly weathering away and in the distant future will be old worn down mountains like the Appalachians out east (which, aeons ago, were the tallest mountains in Earth's history), etc. We may, in such cases, ignore the changes which are, none the less, always occuring in everything and ASS-U-ME that the changes don't matter for current purposes -- and hope that assumption is right. None the less, the changes are, as any first year science student should be able to tell you, still occuring whether we like it or not.

And most folks don't like it. It makes them feel insecure. So, many seek the false security of an "unchanging condition" AKA, "state," which simply can't exist. And sometimes that imaginary concept metastasizes into a political "State."

As the Niarga River inexorably eats away at the bedrock beneath, Niagra Falls moves upstream from 3.5 to 7 feet per year. As a result, during its lifetime, the falls has moved about seven miles upstream. That's why it's where it is today. And, unsurprisingly, there is an organization that wants to stop the process. Lots of luck with that.

Like it or not, universal change is solidly based on established principles of Physics -- and is a basic tenet of General Semantics.

The most basic level models we have of "reality," especially quantum mechanics, indeed tell us everything is pretty much "an undefined cloud of random nothingness." Einstein didn't like this a bit. Neither did seminal quantum physicist Neils Bohr.

Which is probably why he quipped, "If you are not surprised by quantum mechanics then you have not understood it." And, further, likely as a result,

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." --Seminal quantum physicist Niels Bohr

Another legendary physicist, Richard Feynman, agrees with Bohr about Quantum Mechanics - - -

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics." --Richard Feynman

Since quantum models show "reality" to be pretty much "random nothingness" -- and have been reluctantly accepted by main-stream physics -- this probably explains another of Feynman's famous quotes - - - 

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything"... --Richard Feynman

At this point, either you "get" it or you don't.

It took me six months of intensive discussion with one of my friends before he "got" it. Another read "People in Quandaries" and "got it" pretty much on his own. It's not easy either way.

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The revolution HAS been scheduled

It's Februay 6, 2011, Super Bowl Sunday.  The middle-east uprisings are in full swing. Especially in Egypt.

The Egyptians are poorer than we are, had  undergone Mubarak for 30 years, and believed they would never escape the totalitarian yoke. But that was 12 days ago.

In 1987 I was traveling with Monica, a Polish girl from behind the "Iron Curtain...." We had many discussions about the, at the time, Russian "Evil Empire." She believed the hated "soviets" were solidly in control -- and would stay that way for the foreseeable future, perhaps 1,000 years.

I'd read "Can The Soviet Union Survive Until 1984" by a Russian dissident and so I questioned her  assumptions. She held firm.

About two years later in Nov. Dec. 1989, the Germans tore down the most prominent expression of the  "Iron Curtain," the "Berlin Wall." Monica told a lot of her friends about our discussions, and as a result, I got the mostly undeserved reputation among my Polish friends of being a savvy if unconventional social historian.

I just recorded John Kerry, appearing on Meet the Press, trying to explain why the CIA was caught flat-footed in anticipating the timing of the Egyptian uprising. He correctly observed that it's impossible to predict such things.

So, the Second American Revolution HAS been scheduled - - - it's just that no one knows exactly when.

RE: Revolutions

I've got good news and bad news:

The good news is that revolutions are usually bloody, chaotic events where innocent people die, dreams are smashed, and no one in their right mind wants one.

The bad news is that revolutions are caused by those in power who think of themselves as "governors."
And they quite regularly don't know -- or try to ignore -- this observation:

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." --U.S. President John F. Kennedy

These "governors" finally abuse this power to such an extent that, despite prudence -- and "that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed," mankind finally abolishes them anyway.

More bad news: A new crop of "governors" will immediately try to take over as per

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. ...There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." --Daniel Webster

And this - - -

"Within any society, there appears to be a minority that thinks in terms of power and measures the worth of all actions in terms of whether they increase the personal reach of the actors and increase their capacity for control. This is why practically every society of any size is hierarchical, and why hierarchy is never eliminated, only replaced by a different hierarchy -- the same wine in a new bottle."  --Steven Yates, TAKING THE RED PILL, THE REAL MATRIX, PART 3, December 7, 2004, NewsWithViews.com

"The Who" got it exactly right - - - 

For example:

 --Egypt's military keeping repressive practices in place - The Washington Post

and,

I think many people realize that with this election and with this supposed transfer of power, that we still have a long way to go, that the essential institutions of the state have not been reformed whatsoever, that the military has not been reformed, the police, the security and intelligence agencies have not been touched, that really we didn't have regime change in Egypt, we had change within the regime. --Egypt Votes: Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports from Cairo on Historic Post-Mubarak Election

This will likely continue until we catch on to The Iron Law of Oligarchy.

There IS an answer.
What is it?
Need a hint?

I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretense of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. --Thomas Jefferson

And a bit more motivation? 

It's not who or what you think - - -

Ten for Orwellistan!

The REAL Human Condition:.

You're NOT the way they told you you are

Freedom and the Indians

What Went Wrong With the World-wide Socialist Revolutions?

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Game Over? What do you think?

What do you think?

I have CNBC on wall- to-wall and there are two developments that are sub-themes there. I think both are real sleepers.

1. Retail investors are out of the markets. They took at least two beatings in the last decade and the flash-crash was the coup-de-gras. So only the pros are playing.

2. 70% of volume traded (on the equity markets) is "high-frequency" [split-second arbitrage] trading. -CNBC, October 11, 2010, 06:20:10

FWIW, the arbitrage traders don't lose, not even for a day. I think that spells the end of the markets as we know them. The ultimate wise-guys have created max entropy and game over.

What do you think?

Right between the eyes -- free vs. regulated

Email To CNBC sent May 12, 2010:
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I heard two sound-bytes on your air that struck me "right between the eyes" -- in the frontal lobes.

1. In the [2008] financial crisis, it was the regulated entities, not the shadow entities that blew up. --James S. Chanos (Kynikos), May 6, 2010, 07:53:49.

2. Only about 35% of stock market trades are done on the "official" markets -- the rest are done on markets you never even heard of. --Yesterday [May 11, 2010] about 2:49PM

Can you maybe do a segment on the implications, which seem to be:

"We need to do away with the current financial establishment in favor of  unregulated true free-markets."

Or perhaps,

"We're doing away with regulated markets whether we know it or not -- and unregulated works better."

Or did I miss something??

Health, happiness, & long life,
Rick

P.S. Baring the special segment, how about a personal note from Kudlow -- or Michelle Caruso-Cabrera?

The Iron Law of Oligarchy: Another Case Study

The "Iron Law of Oligarchy:" Another example - - - 

...I discovered that in our country [Pakistan] there's a tiny elite who has usurped the resources of the whole country [Pakistan]. The whole country panders to this tiny elite. By the way, I belong to them. And the rich are getting richer. And the vast majority of people don't even have basic rights.... what is happening is, the elite has basically captured the government. Whether it's one party or the other, basically the interests are the same. And so, they come into government, and they plunder the country. They usurp the resources. And so, common people are deprived of all the basic needs... Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan on Musharraf, Bhutto, and How the U.S. Has Undermined Pakistani Democracy, January 30, 2008

Complex systems and the "Waterfall Effect"

The economy is such a complex organism with so many variables that it simply cannot be controlled. It is the height of arrogance that our politicians and so-called economists think they can control it. And it is the absolute height of arrogance that they attempt to do so in such a way as to ALSO benefit their selfish goals. With this level of stupidity, unintended consequences become many orders of magnitude more probable than the intended consequences. In fact, betting on the exact opposite of stated political goals is a sure bet for the long run right now. And the payoff will be tremendous! --FOFOA: The Waterfall Effect