excerpts from "Nine Crazy Ideas in Science" by Robert Ehrlich

From: Ehrlich, Robert. 2001. Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.219 - ... my ratings for the nine ideas discussed in this book. I've used a subjective rating scheme that goes like this: Zero cuckoos means "why not?" One cuckoo means "probably true, but who knows?" Two cuckoos means "very likely not true." Three cuckoos means "almost certainly not true." And four cuckoos means "certainly false."Crazy Idea Rating--------------------------------------------------------More guns means less crime 3 cuckoosAIDS is not caused by HIV 3 cuckoosSun exposure is beneficial 0 cuckoosLow doses of nuclear radiation are beneficial 1 cuckooThe solar system has two suns 2 cuckoosOil, coal, and gas have abiogenic origins 0 cuckoosTime travel is possible 2 cuckoosFaster-than-light particles exist 0 cuckoosThere was no big bang 3 cuckoos122 - Thomas Gold, a well-respected scientist in his own right ... a retired professor of astronomy from Cornell University, has a track record of coming up with weird ideas, some of which were shown to be correct after being initially rejected by the experts in a field. One of Gold's weird ideas (attacked or ignored by most geologists) is that hydrocarbons are not the fossil fuels we believe them to be, but were part of the original composition of the planet, and that they are present in the deep crust and mantle of the Earth in far greater abundance than geologists believe ... If Gold is right, the practical stakes are enormous, since it would mean that fears of an oil or gas shortage could be put off to the distant future. It would also mean that deep sources of natural gas and oil could be found at far more location around the globe than those found to date.What is the nature of the evidence that convinced most geologists of the biogenic origin of petroleum? First, petroleum is almost always found to contain certain groups of molecules that are only produced in the breakdown of living matter. Second, petroleum frequently exhibits "optical activity," meaning that polarized light passing through it has its plane of polarization rotated. This observation can be understood in terms of the kinds of molecules found in petroleum, which often come in mirror-image, right- and left-handed varieties, just like right- and left-handed screws.124 - The phenomenon f optical activity shows that petroleum contains unequal numbers of right- or left-handed molecules. Here again we have an indicator of the effects of life, since living organisms have evolved to eat substance such as right-handed sugar (dextrose) but not its left-handed mirror image (levitose). A third indicator of the biogenic origin of petroleum is the predominance of molecules having an odd number of carbon atoms--another sign of processes involving living systems.Why Reopen the Debate?Gold points out that each of the preceding pieces of evidence for a biogenic origin of petroleum has a plausible alternative explanation in the light of new discoveries. Finding biological traces in petroleum need not point to a biogenic origin, but could equally well be explained based on a biological contamination of a hydrocarbon fluid coming up from great depth.125 - Another new piece of information that warrants reopening the question of the origin of hydrocarbons involves theories about the formation of the Earth. At one time it was believe that the Earth was molten shortly after its formation. Given an initially molten Earth, any hydrocarbons present when the Earth was formed would be destroyed before the Earth solidified ...Current theories about the Earth's formation involve collisions of cold chunks of material yielding an Earth that was not molten throughout. Much of the Earth's mantle is quite hot, but not molten, and this fact has also been offered as a reason that hydrocarbons could not originate from great depths. But these objections fail to consider the stabilizing effects of high pressure, which would prevent oxidation of hydrocarbons if they originated from depths of up to 330 kilometers.126 - A third reason for reopening the debate about the origin of hydrocarbons is that large amounts have been found throughout the solar system on every planet but Venus, Mars, and Mercury. They are also found on many planetary moons. Methane has been found most frequently, but ethane, other hydrocarbon gases, and tar have also been observed. The absence of hydrocarbons on Mars and mercury is due to the lack of a sufficiently dense protective atmosphere, and no information exists about surface hydrocarbons on Venus because of its dense, opaque atmosphere. Hydrocarbons have also been found in solid and gaseous form on a number of comets and asteroids. They have even been found in interstellar space.127 through 140 [page breaks not indicated here -- JH] -Problems with the Biogenic Theory of Oil and Gas1. Crude oil has the wrong chemical composition.2. Sediments often lack fossils.3. Deep petroleum lacks biological traces.4. Oil from each areas has a chemical signature.5. Oil and gas are often found in long linear or arc-shaped regions.6. Hydrocarbons are found at all depths.7. Methane is found in biologically improbable places.8. Surface soils above gas fields have a very high methane content.9.Helium is always found in association with methane.10. Rocks at great depths can contain open pores in isolated domains.11. Petroleum reservoirs refill spontaneously.12. Diamonds exist.13. The Earth's surface layers are very rich in carbon.14. Carbon isotope fractionation in methane varies with depth.15. Carbon isotope fractionation in marine carbonates is constant.144 - According to Gold's theory, nonsedimentary rocks (largely avoided by petroleum geologists) should be just as promising a place to drill for oil as sedimentary rocks, provided they have sufficient porosity ...If Gold is right, the stakes for humanity are enormous, which makes it all the more important to examine his hypothesis with an open mind, unburdened by long-held beliefs whose basis does not rely on fundamental principles. Currently, the world relies on the so-called fossil fuels for a major portion of its energy. If humanity is to have along-term future, eventually we will need to switch to renewable options. Abundant sources of coal, oil, and gas would make that transition much easier. It would also reduce the chances of global conflict that might arise from uneven access to energy supplies. On the other hand, superabundant supplies of coal, oil, and gas would be a mixed blessing. While the145 - extent of climate change resulting from the burning of these fuels for another century might be tolerable (or possibly even beneficial), their indefinite long-term use is bound to lead to problems.You might imagine that, given the financial stakes involved, some oil companies would have taken advantage of Gold's theory (assuming he were right), and their lack of interest, therefore, would seem to argue against the correctness of his theory. But it is dangerous to make arguments based on the motivations of oil company executives. One could argue, for example, that it is in the interest of the oil companies to keep oil prices high by promoting an image of scarcity, and that currently they would have little interest in finding that oil is far more plentiful than had been thought.My rating for the idea that coal, oil, and gas do not have a biogenic origin, and were part of the Earth's original composition, is zero cuckoos.

"Ur-Fascism" by Umberto Eco

The New York Review of BooksJune 22,1995UR-FASCISMBy Umberto Ecohttp://www.nybooks.com/articles/1856In 1942, at the age of ten, Ireceived the First Provincial Award of LudiJuveniles (avoluntary,compulsory competition for young Italian Fascists –that is, for everyyoungItalian). I elaborated with rhetorical skill on thesubject"Should wedie for the glory ofMussolini and the immortal destinyof Italy?" Myanswer was positive. I was a smart boy.I spent two ofmyearly yearsamong the SS, Fascists, Republicans, and partisansshootingatoneanother, and I learned how to dodge bullets. It wasgood exercise.InApril 1945, the partisans took over in Milan. Two dayslater they arrived inthesmalltown where I was living at the time.It was a moment of joy.The mainsquare wascrowded with peoplesinging and waving flags,calling in loudvoices for Mimo, thepartisan leader of that area. Aformer maresciallo oftheCarabinieri, Mimo joined thesupporters ofGeneral Badoglio, Mussolini'ssuccessor, and lost a leg during one of thefirst clashes withMussolini'sremaining forces. Mimo showed up on thebalcony of thecity hall, pale,leaning on his crutch, and with one handtried tocalm the crowd. I waswaiting for his speech because my wholechildhoodhad been marked by thegreat historicspeeches of Mussolini,whosemost significant passages wememorized in school. Silence.Mimospoke in a hoarse voice, barely audible.He said: "Citizens, friends.Afterso manypainful sacrifices . . . here weare. Glory to thosewho havefallen for freedom." And thatwas it. He wentback inside.The crowdyelled, the partisans raised their guns and firedfestivevolleys. We kidshurried to pick up the shells, precious items, butIhad alsolearnedthat freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.Afew days later Isaw the first American soldiers. They wereAfrican Americans.ThefirstYankee I met was a black man, Joseph,who introduced me to themarvels ofDickTracy and Li'l Abner. Hiscomic books were brightly coloredandsmelled good.One of theofficers (Major or Captain Muddy) was a guestin the villa of a family whosetwo daughters were my schoolmates. I methimin their garden wheresome ladies,surrounding Captain Muddy, talkedintentative French.Captain Muddy knew someFrench, too. My first imageofAmericanliberators was thus – after so many palefaces inblackshirts –thatof a cultivated black man in a yellow-green uniform saying:"Oui,mercibeaucoup, Madame, moi aussi j'aime le champagne . . ."Unfortunatelythere wasno champagne, but Captain Muddy gave me my firstpiece ofWrigley'sSpearmint and Istarted chewing all day long. Atnight Iput my wad in awater glass, so it would be freshfor the nextday.2In May weheard that the war was over. Peace gave me acurioussensation. I had beentold that permanent warfare was the normalcondition for a young Italian. Inthe followingmonths I discoveredthatthe Resistance was not only a localphenomenon but a Europeanone. Ilearned new, exciting words like réseau,maquis, arméesecrète, RoteKapelle,Warsaw ghetto. I saw the firstphotographs ofthe Holocaust,thus understanding themeaning before knowingtheword. I realized whatwe were liberated from.In my country today thereare people who arewondering if the Resistance had a realmilitaryimpact onthe course ofthe war. For my generation this question isirrelevant: weimmediatelyunderstood the moral and psychologicalmeaning of theResistance. For us itwas a point of pride to know thatwe Europeans did notwait passivelyfor liberation. Andfor theyoung Americans who were payingwith theirblood for our restoredfreedom itmeant something to know thatbehindthe firing linesthere were Europeans paying theirown debt inadvance.In my countrytoday there are those who are saying that the myth oftheResistance wasaCommunist lie. It is true that the Communists exploitedthe Resistanceas if it were theirpersonal property, since they playedaprimerole in it; but I remember partisans withkerchiefs of differentcolors.Sticking close to the radio, I spent my nights – the windowsclosed,theblackout making the small space around the set a loneluminous halo –listening to the messages sent by the Voice of London to thepartisans.Theywere crypticand poetic at the same time (The sun alsorises,The roses willbloom) and most of themwere "messaggi per laFranchi." Somebody whisperedto me that Franchi was the leaderofthemost powerful clandestine networkin northwestern Italy, a man oflegendarycourage. Franchi became my hero.Franchi (whose real name wasEdgardoSogno) was amonarchist, so stronglyanti-Communist thatafter the warhe joined very right-winggroups, and wascharged withcollaborating ina project for a reactionary coup d'état. Whocares?Sogno still remains thedream hero of my childhood. Liberation was acommondeed for people ofdifferent colors.In my country todaythereare some who say that theWar of Liberation was a tragicperiod of division,and that all we needis national reconciliation.The memory of thoseterrible years should berepressed, refoulée,verdrängt. But Verdrängungcauses neurosis.Ifreconciliation meanscompassion and respect for allthose who fought theirown war ingood faith, to forgive does not mean toforget. I can evenadmitthat Eichmann sincerelybelieved in his mission,but I cannot say,"OK, come back and do it again." We are hereto rememberwhathappenedand solemnly say that "They" must not do it again.But who areThey?If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruledEuropebefore the SecondWorld War we can easily say that it would bedifficultforthem to reappear in the sameform in differenthistoricalcircumstances. IfMussolini's fascism was based upon the ideaof acharismatic ruler, oncorporatism, on the utopia of theImperial Fate ofRome, on animperialisticwill to conquer newterritories, on anexacerbated nationalism, on the idealof an entirenation regimented inblack shirts, on the rejection ofparliamentarydemocracy, onanti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty inacknowledging that today theItalian Alleanza Nazionale, born from thepostwar Fascist Party, MSI,and certainly aright-wing party, has bynowvery little to do with theold fascism. In the same vein, eventhough I ammuch concerned about thevarious Nazi-like movementsthat have arisen hereand there in Europe,including Russia, I do notthink that Nazism, in itsoriginal form, isabout to reappear as anationwide movement.Nevertheless, even thoughpolitical regimes can beoverthrown, andideologies can becriticizedand disowned, behind aregime and its ideologythere is always a way ofthinking and feeling, agroup of cultural habits,of obscure instinctsand unfathomable3drives. Is there still anotherghost stalkingEurope (not to speakof other parts of theworld)?Ionesco once saidthat "only wordscount and the rest is mere chattering."Linguistichabits are frequentlyimportant symptoms of underlying feelings.Thus itis worth askingwhy not only the Resistance but the Second World Warwasgenerallydefined throughoutthe world as a struggle against fascism. Ifyoureread Hemingway's For Whom the BellTolls you will discover thatRobertJordan identifies his enemies with Fascists, even whenhe thinksoftheSpanish Falangists. And for FDR, "The victory of the American peopleandtheir allies will be a victory against fascism and the dead hand ofdespotism itrepresents."During World War II, the Americans whotookpart in theSpanish war were called"premature anti-fascists" –meaningthat fightingagainst Hitler in the Forties was a moraldutyfor everygood American, butfighting against Franco too early, in theThirties,smelled sour because itwas mainly done by Communists andotherleftists. . . . Why wasanexpression like fascist pig used byAmericanradicals thirty years later torefer to a copwho did notapprove oftheir smoking habits? Why didn't theysay: Cagoulard pig,Falangist pig,Ustashe pig, Quisling pig, Nazi pig?Mein Kampf is amanifesto of a completepolitical program. Nazism had atheory ofracism and of the Aryan chosenpeople, a precise notion ofdegenerate art, entarteteKunst, aphilosophy of the will to powerand ofthe Ubermensch. Nazism was decidedlyanti-Christian andneo-pagan, whileStalin's Diamat (the officialversion of SovietMarxism) was blatantlymaterialistic and atheistic. Ifbytotalitarianism one means aregime thatsubordinates every act of theindividual to the state and to its ideology, thenboth Nazism andStalinismwere true totalitarian regimes.Italianfascism wascertainly adictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, notbecauseof itsmildness but rather because of the philosophicalweakness ofits ideology.Contraryto common opinion, fascism inItaly had no specialphilosophy.The article on fascismsigned byMussolini in the TreccaniEncyclopediawas written or basically inspiredbyGiovanni Gentile, but itreflecteda late-Hegelian notion of theAbsolute and Ethical Statewhich wasneverfully realized byMussolini. Mussolini did not have any philosophy: hehadonly rhetoric.He was a militant atheist at the beginning and latersignedtheConvention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessedtheFascist pennants.In his early anticlerical years, according to a likelylegend, he once asked God, in order toprove His existence, to strikehimdown on the spot. Later, Mussolini always cited thename of Godinhisspeeches, and did not mind being called the Man of Providence.Italianfascism was the first right-wing dictatorship that took over aEuropean country,and all similar movements later found a sort ofarchetypein Mussolini'sregime. Italianfascism was the first toestablish amilitary liturgy, afolklore, even a way of dressing –far moreinfluential, with its blackshirts, than Armani, Benetton,or Versace wouldeverbe. It was only in theThirties that fascistmovements appeared,with Mosley, in GreatBritain, andin Latvia,Estonia, Lithuania,Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece,Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal,Norway, and even in South America. It wasItalian fascismthat convincedmany European liberal leaders thatthe newregime was carrying outinteresting social reform, and that itwas providinga mildlyrevolutionary alternative tothe Communistthreat.Nevertheless,historical priority does not seem to me asufficient reason toexplain whythe word fascism became a synecdoche,that is, a word that couldbe usedfor differenttotalitarianmovements. This is not because fascismcontained in itself, so to speak intheir quintessential state, all theelements of any later form oftotalitarianism. On thecontrary, fascismhadno quintessence.Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of4differentphilosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions.Can oneconceiveof a truly totalitarian movement that was able tocombinemonarchy with revolution, theRoyal Army with Mussolini'spersonalmilizia,the grant of privileges to the Church withstateeducationextollingviolence, absolute state control with a free market? TheFascistParty wasborn boasting that it brought a revolutionary neworder; but it was financed bythe most conservative among the landownerswhoexpected from it acounter-revolution.At its beginning fascismwasrepublican. Yet it survivedfor twenty years proclaiming itsloyalty tothe royal family, while the Duce(the unchallengedMaximal Leader) wasarmin-arm with the King, to whom healsooffered the title of Emperor.But when the Kingfired Mussolini in1943, the party reappeared twomonths later, with German support,under thestandard of a "social"republic, recycling its oldrevolutionary script, nowenriched with almostJacobin overtones.There was only a single Naziarchitecture and asingle Nazi art. Ifthe Nazi architect wasAlbert Speer,there was nomore room for Miesvan der Rohe. Similarly, under Stalin'srule, if Lamarckwas right therewas no room for Darwin. In Italy there werecertainlyfascist architectsbut close to their pseudo-Coliseums were manynewbuildings inspiredby the modern rationalism of Gropius.There wasno fascist Zhdanovsetting a strictly cultural line. In Italy there were twoimportant artawards. The Premio Cremona was controlled by a fanatical anduncultivatedFascist, Roberto Farinacci, who encouraged art aspropaganda.(I canremember paintingswith such titles as "Listening byRadio to theDuce's Speech" or "States of Mind Createdby Fascism.") ThePremioBergamowas sponsored by the cultivated and reasonablytolerantFascist GiuseppeBottai, who protected both the concept of art for art'ssake andthe manykinds of avant-garde art that had been banned ascorrupt and crypto-Communistin Germany.The national poet wasD'Annunzio, a dandy who in Germany orin Russia would havebeen senttothe firing squad. He was appointed as thebard of the regime becauseof hisnationalism and his cult of heroism –which were in factabundantlymixed up withinfluences of French fin desiècledecadence.TakeFuturism. One might think it would have beenconsidered an instance ofentarteteKunst, along with Expressionism,Cubism,and Surrealism. Butthe early Italian Futuristswerenationalist; theyfavored Italianparticipation in the First World Warfor aestheticreasons;theycelebrated speed, violence, and risk,all of which somehow seemed toconnectwith the fascist cult of youth.While fascism identified itself withtheRomanEmpire andrediscovered rural traditions, Marinetti (whoproclaimed that a car was morebeautiful than the Victory of Samothrace,andwanted to kill eventhe moonlight) wasnevertheless appointed as amember ofthe ItalianAcademy, which treated moonlightwith greatrespect.Many ofthefuture partisans and of the future intellectuals ofthe Communist Party wereeducated by the GUF, the fascist universitystudents' association, whichwassupposed tobe the cradle of the newfascist culture. Theseclubs became asort of intellectual meltingpotwhere new ideascirculated without any realideological control. It was notthat themen of the party were tolerant ofradical thinking, but few ofthemhad the intellectualequipment to controlit.During thosetwenty years, the poetry of Montale and other writersassociated withthegroup called the Ermetici was a reaction to thebombastic style oftheregime, and thesepoets were allowed to develop theirliteraryprotestfrom within what was seen as theirivory tower. The mood ofthe Ermeticipoets was exactly the reverse of the fascist cult ofoptimismandheroism. The regime tolerated their blatant, eventhough socially5imperceptible, dissent because the Fascists simply didnot pay attention tosuch arcanelanguage.All this does not meanthat Italian fascismwastolerant. Gramsci was put in prison untilhis death; the oppositionleadersGiacomo Matteotti and the brothersRosselli wereassassinated;the freepress was abolished, the laborunions were dismantled, andpoliticaldissenters were confined on remoteislands. Legislative powerbecame a merefiction andthe executivepower (which controlled thejudiciary as well asthe mass media)directlyissued new laws, amongthem laws calling forpreservationof the race (the formal Italiangesture of support for whatbecame theHolocaust).The contradictorypicture I describe was not theresultof tolerance but of political andideological discombobulation. Butitwas a rigid discombobulation, astructuredconfusion. Fascism wasphilosophically out of joint, butemotionally it was firmlyfastenedto somearchetypal foundations.So we come to my second point. There wasonly oneNazism. We cannotlabel Franco'shyper-Catholic Falangismas Nazism, sinceNazism isfundamentally pagan, polytheistic,andanti-Christian. But thefascistgame can be played in many forms, andthe name of thegame does notchange. The notion of fascism is notunlike Wittgenstein's notion of agame.A game can be either competitiveor not, it can require somespecial skill ornone,it can or cannotinvolve money. Games aredifferent activities thatdisplay only some"family resemblance," asWittgenstein put it. Consider thefollowingsequence:1 2 3 4abcbcd cde defSuppose there is aseriesof political groups in which groupone is characterized by thefeaturesabc, group two by the features bcd, andso on. Group two is similartogroup onesince they have two features incommon; for the same reasonsthree is similar to two andfour is similarto three. Notice thatthree isalso similar to one (they have in common thefeature c). Themost curiouscase is presented by four, obviouslysimilar to three andtwo,but with nofeature in common with one.However, owing to theuninterrupted series ofdecreasing similaritiesbetween one and four,there remains, by a sort ofillusorytransitivity,a familyresemblance between four and one.Fascism became an all-purposetermbecause one can eliminate from a fascistregime oneor morefeatures, and it will still be recognizable as fascist.Take awayimperialism fromfascism and you still have Franco and Salazar.Takeaway colonialism and you still havethe Balkan fascism of the Ustashes.Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism(which never muchfascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celticmythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) andyou haveone of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.Butinspite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list offeaturesthat aretypical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism,orEternalFascism. These features cannotbe organized into asystem; manyof themcontradict each other, and are also typical ofother kinds ofdespotism orfanaticism. But it is enough that one ofthem be present toallow fascism tocoagulate around it.1. Thefirst feature ofUr-Fascism is the cult oftradition. Traditionalism isof course mucholder than fascism. Not only wasit typical ofcounter-revolutionaryCatholic thought afterthe Frenchrevolution,but it was born in thelate Hellenistic era, as a reaction toclassicalGreek rationalism. Inthe Mediterranean basin, people of differentreligions (most of themindulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon)starteddreaming of arevelation received atthe dawn of humanhistory. Thisrevelation,according to the traditionalist mystique, had6remained fora longtime concealed under the veil of forgottenlanguages – in Egyptianhieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls ofthe little knownreligions of Asia.This new culture had to besyncretistic. Syncretismisnot only, as the dictionary says,"thecombination of different formsofbelief or practice"; such acombination musttolerate contradictions.Eachof the originalmessages contains a silver of wisdom, andwheneverthey seemto saydifferent or incompatible things it is only because all arealluding,allegorically, to the same primeval truth.As aconsequence, therecan be noadvancement of learning. Truth has been alreadyspelled outonce and forall, and we can only keep interpreting itsobscure message.One has only tolook at the syllabus of every fascistmovement tofind the majortraditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis wasnourished bytraditionalist,syncretistic,occult elements. The mostinfluentialtheoretical source ofthe theories of the new Italianright,JuliusEvola, merged the Holy Grailwith The Protocols of the Elders ofZion,alchemy with the Holy Roman andGermanic Empire. The very factthatthe Italian right,in order to show itsopen-mindedness, recentlybroadened its syllabus to include works byDeMaistre, Guenon, andGramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.If youbrowse in theshelvesthat, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, youcanfind thereeven Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not afascist. Butcombining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is asymptom ofUr-Fascism.2. Traditionalism implies the rejection ofmodernism. BothFascists and Nazis worshipedtechnology, whiletraditionalist thinkersusually reject it as a negation of traditionalspiritual values.However,even though Nazism was proud of itsindustrial achievements,its praise ofmodernism was only the surface ofan ideology based uponBlood and Earth(Blut und Boden). The rejectionof the modern world wasdisguised as arebuttal of thecapitalisticway of life, but it mainlyconcerned therejection of the Spirit of 1789(and of1776, of course).The Enlightenment,the Age of Reason, isseen as the beginning ofmoderndepravity. In thissense Ur-Fascismcan be defined as irrationalism.3.Irrationalism alsodepends onthe cult of action for action's sake. Actionbeingbeautiful initself, it must be taken before, or without, anyprevious reflection.Thinkingisa form of emasculation. Thereforeculture is suspectinsofar as it isidentified with criticalattitudes.Distrust of theintellectual world hasalways been a symptom of Ur-Fascism,fromGoering's alleged statement ("WhenI hear talk of culture I reachfor mygun") to thefrequent use of suchexpressions as "degenerateintellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs,""universities are a nest ofreds." The official Fascist intellectuals weremainly engaged inattacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsiafor havingbetrayed traditionalvalues.4. No syncretistic faith canwithstandanalytical criticism. The critical spirit makesdistinctions, andtodistinguish is a sign of modernism. In modernculture the scientificcommunity praises disagreement as a way to improveknowledge. ForUr-Fascism,disagreement is treason.5. Besides,disagreement is asignof diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks forconsensus byexploiting andexacerbating the natural fear ofdifference. The first appealof a fascistor prematurely fascistmovement is an appeal against theintruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racistby definition.6. Ur-Fascismderives from individualor socialfrustration. That is why one of the mosttypical features of thehistorical fascism was the appeal to afrustrated middle class, aclasssuffering from an economic crisis orfeelings of politicalhumiliation, andfrightenedby the pressure oflower social groups.In our time, when the old"proletarians" are7becoming pettybourgeois (and the lumpen arelargely excluded from thepoliticalscene),the fascism of tomorrow willfind its audience in thisnewmajority.7. To people who feel deprived of aclear social identity,Ur-Fascism says that their onlyprivilege is the mostcommon one, tobeborn in the same country. This is the origin ofnationalism. Besides,theonly ones who can provide an identity to thenation are itsenemies.Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology thereis theobsession with aplot,possibly an international one. The followersmust feel besieged.The easiest way to solvethe plot is the appealtoxenophobia. But theplot must also come from the inside: Jewsareusuallythe best targetbecause they have the advantage of being at thesame timeinside andoutside. In the U.S., a prominent instance of theplot obsessionis to befoundin Pat Robertson's The New WorldOrder, but, as we haverecentlyseen, there are manyothers.8.The followers must feelhumiliatedby the ostentatious wealth and forceof theirenemies. When I wasa boyI was taught to think ofEnglishmen as the five-meal people.They atemore frequently than thepoor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and helpeachother through asecret web of mutual assistance. However, the followersmustbeconvinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by acontinuousshifting ofrhetorical focus, the enemies are at the sametime toostrongand too weak. Fascistgovernments are condemned to losewarsbecause theyare constitutionally incapable ofobjectivelyevaluating the force of theenemy.9. For Ur-Fascism there is nostruggle for life but, rather, life islived for struggle. Thuspacifismis trafficking with the enemy. It is badbecause life ispermanent warfare.This,however, brings about an Armageddoncomplex. Since enemies have tobe defeated, theremust be a finalbattle,after which the movement willhave control of the world. Butsucha "finalsolution" implies a furtherera of peace, a GoldenAge, which contradicts theprinciple of permanentwar. No fascist leaderhas ever succeeded in solvingthispredicament.10. Elitism is atypical aspect of any reactionaryideology, insofar asit isfundamentallyaristocratic, and aristocratic andmilitaristicelitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.Ur-Fascism canonlyadvocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best peopleofthe world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, everycitizen can(or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannotbepatricians withoutplebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing thathispowerwas not delegated to himdemocratically but was conqueredbyforce, alsoknows that his force is based upon theweakness ofthemasses; they are soweak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since thegroupis hierarchicallyorganized (according to a military model), everysubordinate leaderdespiseshis own underlings, and each of themdespises his inferiors. This reinforces thesense of mass elitism.11.In such a perspective everybody is educatedto become a hero. Ineverymythology thehero is an exceptional being, butin Ur-Fascistideology,heroism is the norm. This cult ofheroism isstrictlylinked with thecult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of theFalangists was Vivala Muerte (in English it should be translated as"LongLive Death!").Innon-fascist societies, the lay public istold that deathis unpleasant butmust be facedwith dignity;believers are told that it isthe painfulway to reach a supernaturalhappiness.By contrast, theUr-Fascist herocraves heroic death,advertised as the best reward for aheroic life. TheUr-Fascist hero isimpatient to die. In his impatience, hemore frequentlysends otherpeople to death.12. Since both permanentwar andheroism aredifficult games to play, the Ur-Fascisttransfers hiswillto powerto sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (whichimpliesbothdisdain for women and intolerance and condemnation ofnonstandardsexual8habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since evensex isadifficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play withweapons– doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.13. Ur-Fascism isbasedupon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.In ademocracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens intheirentirety have apolitical impact only from a quantitativepoint ofview –one follows the decisions of themajority. ForUr-Fascism,however,individuals as individuals have no rights, and thePeople isconceived as aquality, a monolithic entity expressing theCommon Will.Sinceno largequantity of human beings can have acommon will, theLeader pretends to betheir interpreter. Having losttheir power ofdelegation, citizens do notact; they are onlycalledon to play therole of the People. Thus the Peopleis only a theatricalfiction. Tohave a good instance of qualitativepopulism we no longerneed thePiazza Venezia inRome or the NurembergStadium. There isin our futurea TV or Internet populism, inwhich theemotionalresponse of a selectedgroup of citizens can be presented andacceptedas the Voice of the People.Because of its qualitative populismUr-Fascism must be against "rotten"parliamentarygovernments. Oneof thefirst sentences uttered byMussolini in the Italian parliamentwas"I couldhave transformed thisdeaf and gloomy place into abivouac for my maniples" –"maniples" being asubdivision of thetraditional Roman legion. As a matterof fact, heimmediately foundbetter housing for his maniples, but a littlelater heliquidated theparliament. Wherever a politician casts doubt on thelegitimacy of aparliament because itno longer represents the Voice ofthePeople,we can smell Ur-Fascism.14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.Newspeakwas invented by Orwell, in 1984, as theofficial language ofIngsoc,EnglishSocialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are commontodifferent forms ofdictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooksmadeuse of animpoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, inorder tolimit theinstruments forcomplex and critical reasoning.But we must beready toidentify other kinds ofNewspeak, even ifthey take theapparently innocentform of a popular talk show.Onthe morning of July27, 1943, I was toldthat, according to radioreports, fascism hadcollapsed and Mussolini wasunder arrest. When mymother sent me out tobuy thenewspaper, I saw thatthe papers atthe nearest newsstand haddifferent titles. Moreover,afterseeingthe headlines, I realized thateach newspaper said different things. Iboughtone of them, blindly, andread a message on the first pagesigned byfive or six politicalparties– among them the DemocraziaCristiana, theCommunist Party, the SocialistParty,the Partitod'Azione, and the LiberalParty.Until then, Ihad believed thatthere was a single party in everycountry and that inItaly itwasthe Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I wasdiscovering thatin my countryseveralparties could exist at the same time.Since I wasa cleverboy, I immediately realized thatso many parties couldnot havebeenborn overnight, and they must have existed for sometime asclandestineorganizations.The message on the front celebrated the endofthedictatorship and the return of freedom:freedom of speech, ofpress, ofpolitical association. These words, "freedom,""dictatorship,""liberty," –I now read them for the first time in my life. I was rebornasafreeWestern man by virtue of these new words.We must keepalert,so that thesense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is stillaround us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be somuch easier, for us,ifthere appeared on the world scene somebodysaying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz,Iwant the Black Shirts toparadeagain in the Italian squares." Life is notthat simple. Ur-Fascism cancome back under the most innocent of disguises.Our dutyis to uncover it9and to point our finger at any of its newinstances – every day,in every part of the world.FranklinRoosevelt'swords of November 4,1938, are worth recalling:"Iventure the challengingstatement that ifAmerican democracy ceasesto move forward as a livingforce, seeking dayand night by peacefulmeans to better the lot of ourcitizens, fascismwill grow instrength in ourland."Freedom andliberation are anunendingtask. Let me finish with a poem by FrancoFortini:Sullaspallettadel ponteLe teste degli impiccatiNell'acqua della fonteLa bavadegli impiccati.Sul lastrico delmercatoLe unghie deifucilatiSull'erba secca del pratoI denti deifucilati.Morderel'aria mordere i sassiLa nostra carne non è piùd'uominiMorderel'aria mordere i sassiIl nostro cuore non è piùd'uomini.Ma nois'è letto negli occhi dei mortiE sulla terrafaremolibertàMal'hanno stretta i pugni dei mortiLa giustiziache si farà.(On thebridge's parapetThe heads of the hangedInthe flowingrivuletThe spittle of the hanged.On the cobbles in themarket-placesThefingernails of those lined up and shotOn the drygrass in the openspacesThe broken teeth of those lined up and shot.Biting the air,biting the stonesOur flesh is no longer humanBiting the air,bitingthe stonesOur hearts are no longerhuman.But we have readinto theeyes of the deadAnd shallbring freedom on the earthButclenched tightin the fists of thedeadLies the justice to be served.)– poemtranslated by StephenSartarelli* * *


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See also:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004/11/holiday-break.html

From CLB: "The Social Cost of China's Accession to the WTO" by Cai Chongguo

From an e-mail I got from the China Labour Bulletin:____________________________________________________________________________________________Commentary: The Social Cost of China's Accession to the WTOBy Cai ChongguoChina joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) four years ago in December 2001, after preparing and negotiating for membership for 15 years, a process that resulted in major changes in the country.Over the years, the Chinese government and mainstream economists regarded China's accession to the WTO as a trading policy issue, that they were never able to accurately calculate the impact on people's livelihood. It was regarded as a technical problem, confined to how to open up China's economy to foreign investment. But very few of them considered the high price that society, especially ordinary Chinese citizens, would have to pay for this economic commitment.The massive propaganda campaign and real "reforms" made in preparation for WTO membership produced a complete change in the collective consciousness of society in China as well as changes in the economic culture and the political and economic elite. The WTO campaign intentionally created a new fantasy to replace the fantasy of Communism, purporting that once China joined the WTO, foreign investment would flood into the country and China's economy would develop rapidly, creating job opportunities for many Chinese. The legal system, economic management and corporate management would improve rapidly and this would accelerate China's industrial and technological modernisation. This fantasy of the central government, however, had a highly detrimental impact at the local level as well as among the leaders of state enterprises. They gave up attempts to strengthen the enforcement of existing laws and regulations and efforts to modernize government administration, economic planning and management, and corporate management, focusing instead on attracting foreign investment. They lost confidence and the patience to improve the operations of state-owned enterprises and collectively-owned enterprises. They even lost interest in their own enterprises. Attracting foreign investment and increasing exports became their singular goal. Joining the WTO would ultimately change China's entire strategy on economic development, i.e. by building it on expanding external trade and increasing foreign investment. As a result, China's economy is heavily dependent on foreign trade, which now accounts for more than 70 percent of China's national income - about 20 percent higher than that of Western countries. China has becomes the "world's factory" for cheap goods, and government offices throughout China have in fact become the China offices of international investors.The Chinese people, in particular the ordinary workers, are suffering as a result of this reform programme.The first result of this phenomenon is that the number of unemployed and the poor in the cities has grown dramatically. Government and businesses have laid off large numbers of workers under the programme of "quickening the pace of enterprise reform" to prepare for the entry of China into the WTO. In fact what has happened is that without the supervision of an independent workers' organisation and without an effective employees' committee, many enterprises which were faced with temporary difficulties have been forced to close down or be privatised. At the same time, other companies that are performing well have also cut their workforce, or forced some employees to take early retirement in order to improve competitiveness. Over the past 10 years, millions of workers in China have been laid off or suffered retrenchment. (The latter term applies to employees of state-owned enterprises, who once they are retrenched, lose the job they were assigned under the centrally planned economic system and are forced to accept a gradually diminishing set of social security benefits.) As of the end of 2004, some experts estimate that the number of unemployed living in urban areas in China had reached more than 20 million and that the unemployment rate lies somewhere between 15 and 18 percent. The rate of impoverishment in urban areas has also quickened. According to official statistics, about 24 million people living in urban areas depend on the minimum living allowance for their existence. This is a 10-fold increase in 10 years. However, there are a large number of poor who do not even receive this.A second development is that more jobs are just temporary positions and working conditions have worsened. For those employed and living in urban areas, few have any kind of job security with the exception of civil servants. The head of the state enterprise or the owner of a private enterprise can fire or lay off workers at any time. Thus, for today's workers, the hours are long, the workload is heavy, and the wages are low.According to a survey done by China's Ministry of Labour and Social Security at the end of 2004, workers in all industries in China work longer hours than the law designates, working on average about 50 hours a week. Separately, a survey done by the Guangdong Provincial branch of the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) released at the beginning of 2005, revealed that 76.3 percent of those working in the Pearl River Delta area in urban areas earned less than 1,000 yuan a month. In the past 12 years, monthly wages have risen by just 68 yuan. At the same time, work-related injuries and occupational illnesses had risen rapidly around the country. Every week there is a report of another coal mine explosion or accident.A third phenomenon of this rapid pace of reform is the breakdown of the social security system and the privatization and commercialization of public services such as education and medical facilities. In order to quicken the pace of reform and before the set up of the new social security system, the government and enterprises have thrown out the existing pension and medical payment plans which were part of the state enterprise system. According to official reports, less than 15 percent of the workforce in China has a pension plan and medical insurance. The privatisation and the commercialisation of the medical system has brought about yearly increases in the cost of medical care. According to one report that was released in May this year, about half the population in China does not go to the doctor when they are ill because they can not afford to. As for education, in the past 10 years, tuition fees and charges have risen 15-fold.Everyone is aware of the fact that over the past decade the inequalities in society and the wealth gap between different geographic areas in China have worsened; domestic enterprises, especially heavy industry, are near collapse. Strikes, marches, demonstrations and other forms of protest are more frequent. The oppression of the government has become more severe. China's entry into the WTO has put more workers in prison for daring to fight against the injustices in today's society.19 December 2005

Poverty rate rising; poor getting poorer

Poverty Rate Continues To Climb 2004 Census Data Show Labor Market Is Still StrugglingBy

Jonathan Weisman and Ceci Connolly

Washington Post Staff Writers

Wednesday, August 31, 2005;A03

The Washington Post

Despite robust economic growth last year, 1.1 million more Americans slipped into poverty in 2004, while household incomes stagnated and earnings fell, the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 800,000, to 45.8 million.The Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance sheds light on voter discontent with the economy in the face of seemingly strong economic data. The broad data draw a picture of a labor market still struggling to find its footing, three years after the 2001 recession.The poverty rate climbed in 2004 to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2003 -- the fourth year in a row that poverty has risen. The increase was borne completely by non-Hispanic whites, the only ethnic group that saw its poverty rate rise. The percentage of whites in poverty rose from 8.2 percent in 2003 to 8.6 percent. African Americans saw no change in their poverty rate, which remained at 24.7 percent. The poverty rate for Hispanics remained at 21.9 percent, while Asian Americans' poverty levels dropped by two percentage points, to 9.8 percent.

Also, from a different source:

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CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH

For ImmediateRelease: September 21, 2005

Economists Document Long-Term Growth Fall-Off for Developing CountriesSuggest Topic for IMF/World Bank Fall Meetings

Progress in Health Outcomes, Education Also Reduced

Washington, DC:

The last 25 years have seen sharply reduced economicgrowth and reduced progress in health and education outcomes for low-and middle-income countries in comparison with previous decades, asdocumented in a new paper by the Center for Economic and Policy Research."The official data show a very different picture than most policy-makersand the public have in mind," said economist Mark Weisbrot, Co-Directorof CEPR and co-author of the report."The number one question for the IMF and World Bank at their fallmeetings this weekend should be: what has gone wrong over the last 25 years in the vast majority of developing countries?

The paper, "The Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress" http://www.cepr.net/publications/development_2005_09.pdf compares the last 25 years (1980-2005) with the prior two decades(1960-1980) on:- Growth (GDP per capita)- Health outcomes (life expectancy, mortality rates for adults,children, and infants)- Education (public spending on education, school enrollment rates, literacy)

The paper finds a sharp slowdown in growth of GDP per capita and reduced progress for the vast majority of countries on almost all ofthe social indicators. The paper also briefly addresses the possiblereasons for this economic failure, as well as the exceptional successesof China and India over the last 25 years.The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is a non-partisan,non-profit policy institute that was established to promote democraticdebate on the most important economic and social issues that affectpeople's lives.

CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate EconomistsRobert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz, and Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

from SojoMail letters section: Words from an expert

The following comes from my weekly e-mail from Sojourners. Part of the weekly e-mail is a section called Boomerang, in which readers write in to respond, like in a newspaper editorial section. This is what one person wrote to Sojourners, and NOT from me. The letter's author, Ritagail Burleson, refers to the Katrina Pledge that is being sponsored by Sojourners, in which signers are asked to press elected officials to focus government priorities on poverty, inspired by the poverty that was both displayed and worsened by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath -- JH:

-----------------------------

Readers write----------

Ritagail Burleson writes from Bartlesville, Oklahoma

I live in poverty in the state of Oklahoma. I will not be signing your Katrina Pledge for the following reasons:

1. The pledge states: "As a person of faith, I believe that the poverty we have witnessed on the rooftops of New Orleans and the devastated communities of the Gulf Coast is morally unacceptable." If I am only moved by the sight of poverty when I see the people on their rooftops on the news, then I have had a very hardened heart - especially if I am "a person of faith."

2. I am already doing #1 in the Katrina Pledge, and did even before the hurricane hit, as soon as I saw that the hurricane was aimed at the Gulf Coast. And I wasn't praying merely for "the poor," but for everyone. (And I have given money, not much because I have little, but I still have done it. But then, I have given money to others before the hurricane.) I also do what I can, with my extremely limited resources, to help people God may send my way, regardless of their socio-economic class. Have the rest of you been doing the same, especially those of you who have more resources than I have?

3. I might support #2 in the Katrina Pledge, except for the way the first part is worded: " I pledge to work for sweeping change of our nation's priorities. I will press my elected representatives...." If we leave the "sweeping change" to our "elected representatives" we are merely passing on the responsibility. I wish something like the following would have been included: "As a person of faith, I will do what I can to personally help the people who God brings into my life, no matter who they are. I will strive to be an example in my own faith-based group (church) so that we are welcoming to people other than those of our own socio-economic level.

A cool quote by some guy; don't hate him for being a Frenchie

This quote, from some guy named Francois Perroux, was taken from the book One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse quotes Perroux in French, and then has an English translation in a footnote (don't know who did the translation). The Perroux quote was taken by Marcuse out of Perroux's book La Coexistence pacifique; it says loc. cit. vol. III, p. 631:

"They believe they are dying for the Class, they die for the Party boys. They believe they are dying for the Fatherland, they die for the Industrialists. They believe they are dying for the freedom of the Person, they die for the Freedom of the dividends. They believe they are dying by orders of a State, they die for the money which holds the State. They believe they are dying for a nation, they die for the bandits that gag it ..."

I don't know if i'm for or against the Iraq war and all that, but this quote seems to be just generally to think about for all sorts of situations. The Iraqi insurgents and other terrorists should remember this too -- JH.

from "Lifelines from Our Past" by L.S. Stravrianos

Stavrianos, L.S. Lifelines from Our Past: A New World History. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.

142 - A few Third World countries--Taiwan, South Korea, and Brazil--have advanced from being export platforms to becoming integrated, self-generating, industrialized national economies. In fact, their products have developed to such a point that Brazilian steel, Taiwanese textiles, and Korean autos have provoked protectionist demands in First World countries. But these exceptional successes have not been and are unlikely to be repeated on any significant scale in the Third World as a whole. Brazil is unique in the richness of its natural resources, while South Korea and Taiwan (along with Japan) received massive American financial and technical aid and preferential trade privileges--almost the equivalent of an Asian Marshall Plan--during the Korean and Vietnam War periods. Between 1951 and 1965, the United States pumped about $1.5 billion of economic aid into Taiwan, and much more into South Korea--about $6 billion between 1945 and 1978.

In the rest of the Third World, export platforms have yielded few lasting benefits because the semiskilled and unskilled jobs they generate do not provide the technical training needed for local de-

143 -- velopment, because the low wages they pay offer no way out of a domestic market inadequate for local industrial development, and because the multinational do little more than the former colonial powers to encourage the development of a local industrial base. [. . .]

The gap in average per capita income between what we now call the First and Third Worlds was roughly 3 to 1 in 1500. Since then it has widened exponentially: 6 to 1 by 1900; 14 to 1 by 1970; and an estimated 30 to 1 by 2000 [ NOTE TO SELF: check what gap is now]. Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein con-

144 - cludes that the great majority of the human race at the base of the global economic pyramid is worse off today than in precapitalist times:

Without any attempt to romanticize the nature of a peasant's life in the Middle Ages, either in Europe or anywhere else in the world, let me offer this brief analysis. If you compare similar strata of the population of the world-economy as a whole, with 70-80% at the bottom, this "bottom" appears worse off today than they were 500-600 years ago, and the top 20% is unvevenly spaced geographically throughout the world, and live primarily in such countries as the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Japan. Those who make up the top 20% of thw world population may comprise up to 50-70% of the population of those industrial countries. Consequently if someone from one of those countries asks, "Are we better off than our ancestors were 500 years ago?" their answer is not only "yes," but obviously "yes." But that is because those countries have a high percentage of the world's upper strata. 41

255 - 41. I. Wallerstein, "The World-System: Myths and Historical Shifts," in E.W. Goldolf et al., eds., The Global Economy: Divergent Perspectives on Economic Change (Westview Press, 1986), pp. 20-21

209 - Not only hasthe USSR failed as a socialist model--whether judged economically or in terms of gains in social freedom--but so have the numerous other socialist societies that emerged in Europe, Asia, and Africa following World War II. If the destructive side of capitalism has created immense problems for the world, socialist attempts to restructure societies have spawned even more serious and immediate problems in countries like China, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Ethiopia, as well as in the Soviet Union itself. Two general factors stand out as primarily responsible for the difficulties experienced by these widely scattered socialist societies.

The first is their uniformly underdeveloped and impoverished historical origins. Marx has assumed that his long-awaited revolution would occur in the devloped industrialized countries before it did in their colonies. Instead, post-World War II revolutionary socialism emerged mostly in the underdeveloped, poverty-stricken former colonial or semicolonial areas. Socialism everywhere (with the partial exception of eastern Europe) has appeared on the historical stage as a substitute for rather than a successor to capitalism. 21 [I didn't record citation -- JH]

215 - The reference to the American New Left is significant because like them the Soviet left inteliigentsia represents only a small minority of its country's people. This raises the crucial question of the views of Soviet workers and peasants who comprise the overwhelming majority of the total population and who appear to be deeply ambivalent about developments, perhaps because their status is, in fact, highly equivocal. On the one hand, they have plenty of firsthand kowledge of the corruption and cronyism that characterized the preceding Brezhnev regime. On the other hand, they have enjoyed a secure and comfortable niche within that regime, including guaranteed jobs, as well as food, housing, and medical care that have been subsidized and ceap, even though of mediocre or poor quality. The Soviet people as a whole have learned to accept their socialist society as a national insurance policy, whose security is generally welcomed and popular. What is not popular is the quality of the goods and services provided, especially as more information

216 - is received on the high-quality goods and services available in the West. [. . .] The ideal arangement for most Soviet citizens would involved an improvement in the quality of goods and services together with a continuation of the existing lifetime security polices. [. . .]

So the USSR of the 1980s resembles in certain ways the USA of the mid-1930s--the same unrest, anxiety, dreams, nightmares, and impatient social experimentation that is at once exhilirating and sobering.

220 - The historical experience of England provides a good example of the difference between past and present industrialization. During the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, English workers were severely exploited because medieval guilds had atrophied and trade unions were not yet legalized. Hence, the machinery-smashing by Luddites and the 1819 "Peterloo massacre" of rioting workers. After 1850 the "trickle down," so talked about in the Third World today but which so rarely materializes, did actually occur and did benefit the British working class, resulting in industrial peace and general prosperity. But this was possible only because British industry enjoyed the unique advantage of a monopoly of world markets. [. . .]

Developing countries today have no such broad avenue beckoning to the future--no such foreign markets open to their products. Instead, world price levels for their raw materials continue steadily to decline, while their few industrial exports (textiles, steel, shoes, and clothing) enounter increasing demands from the already industrialized world for "fair trade"--the most recent euphemism for protectionism. Equally serious for Third World countries aspiring to climb up the economic ladder has been the inelasticity of their own domestic markets. Native industries not only have problems of access to foreign makrets but also are fettered by inadequate purchasing power at home, the two phenomena being, of course, linked.

from "Tolstoy and Englightenment," by Isaiah Berlin

Note: Just because I'm a liberal wuss, please don't assume I agree with whatever Tolstoy believes (or I should say, what Isaiah Berlin says Tolstoy believes). However, just because I'm a hate-filled asshole, please don't assume I disagree with Tolstoy about everything either. Remember the following is not by Tolstoy, but by Isaiah Berlin.

-------------------------------

39 - Truth, for Tolstoy, is always discoverable, to follow it is good, inwardly sound, harmonious. Yet it is clear that our society is not harmonious or composed of internally harmonious individuals. The interests of the educated minority--what he calls "the professors, the barons and the bankers"--are opposed to those of the majority--the peasants, the poor. Each side is indifferent to, or mocks, the values of the other. Even those who, like Olenin, Pierre, Nekhlyudov, Levin, realize the spuriousness of the values of the professors, barons and bankers, and the moral decay in which their false education has involved them, even those who are truly contrite, cannot, despite Slavophil pretensions, go native and "merge" with the mass of the common people. Are they too corrupt ever to recover their innocence? Is their case hopeless? Can it be that civilized men have acquired (or discovered) certain true values of their own, which barbarians and children may know nothing of, but which they--the civilized--cannot lose or forget, even if, by some imposible means, they could transform themselves into peasants or the free and happy Cossacks of the Don and the Terek? This is one of the central and most tormenting problems in Tolstoy's life, to which he goes back again and again, and to which he returns conflicting answers.

Tolstoy knows that he himself clearly belongs to the minority of barons, bankers, professors. He knows the symptoms of his condition only too well. He cannot, for example, deny his passionate love for the music of Mozart or Chopin or the poetry of pushkin or Tyutchev--the ripest fruits of civilization. He needs--he cannot do without--the printed word and all the elaborate paraphernalia of the culture in which such lives are lived and such works of art are created. But what is the use of Pushkin to village boys, when his words are not intelligible to them? What real
40 - benefits has the invention of printing brought the peasants? We are told, Tolstoy observes, that books educate societies ("that is, make them more corrupt"), that is was the written word that has promoted the emancipation of the serfs in Russia. Tolstoy denies this: the government would have done the same without books or pamphlets. Pushkin's Boris Godunov pleases him, Tolstoy, deeply, but to the peasants mean nothing. The triumphs of civilization? The telegraph informs him about his sister's health, or about the political prospects of King Otto I of Greece; but what benefit do the masses gain from it? Yet it is they who pay and have always paid for it all, and they know this well. When peasants in the "cholera riots" kill doctors because they regard them as poisoners, what they do is no doubt wrong, yet these murders are no accident: the instinct which tells the peasants who their oppressors are is sound, and the doctors belong to that class. When Wanda Landowska played to the villagers or Yasnaya Polyana, the great majority of them remained unresponsive. Yet can it be doubted that it is these simple people who lead the least broken lives, immeasurably superior to the warped and tormented lives of the rich and educated? The common people, Tolstoy asserts in his early educational tracts, are self-subsistent not only materially but spiritually--folksong, ballads, the Iliad, the Bible, spring from the people itself, are are therefore intelligible to all men everywhere, as Tyutchev's magnificent poem Silentium, or Don Giovanni, or the Ninth Symphony are not. If there is an ideal of human life, it lies not in the future but in the past. Once upon a time there was the Garden of Eden, and in it dwelt the uncorrupted human soul--as the Bible and Rousseau conceived it--and then came the Fall, corruption, suffering, falsehood. It is mere blindness (Tolstoy says over and over again) to believe, as liberals or socialists--"the progressives"--believe, that the golden age is still to come, that history is the story of improvement, that advances in natural science or material skills coincide with real moral progress. The truth is the reverse of this.

The child is closer to the ideal harmony than the man, and the simple peasant than the torn, "alienated," morally and spiritually unanchored, self-destructive parasites who form the civilized elite. From this doctrine springs Tolstoy's notable anti-individualism; and in particular his diagnosis of the individual's will as the source of misdirection and perversion of "natural" human tendencies, and hence the conviction (derived largely from Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will as the source of frustration) that to plan, organize, rely on science, try to create ordered patterns of life in accordance with rational theories, is to swim against the stream of nature, to close one's eyes to the saving truth within us, to torture

41 - facts to fit artificial schemes, and torture human beings to fit social and economic systems against which their natures cry out. From the same source, too, comes the obverse of this moral: Tolstoy's faith in the intuitively grasped direction of things as being not merely inevitable but objectively--providentially--good; and therefore belief in the need to submit to it: his quietism.
This is one aspect of his teaching, the most familiar, the central idea of the Tolstoyan movement. It runs through all his mature works, imaginative, critical, didactic, from The Cossacks and Family Happiness, to his last religious tracts; this is the doctrine which both liberal and Marxists duly condemned. It is in this mood that Tolstoy (like Marx, whom he neither respected nor understood) maintains that to imagine that heroic personalities determine events is a piece of colossal megalomania and self-deception. His narrative is designed to show the insignificance of Napoleon or Alexander, or of aristocratic and bureaucratic society in Anna Karenina, or of the judges and official persons in Resurrection; or again, the emptiness and political impotence of historians and philosophers who try to explain events by employing concepts like "power" attributed to great men, or "influence" ascribed to writers, orators, preachers--words, abstractions, which, in his view, explain nothing, being themselves more obscure than the facts for which they purport to account. He maintains that we do not being to understand, and therefore cannot explain or analyse, what it is to wield authority or strength, to influence, to dominate. Explanations that do not explain, are, for Tolstoy, a symptom of the sestructive and self-inflated intellect, the faculty that kills innocence and leads to false notions and the ruin of human life. [. . .]

His other strain (interwoven with the first) is the direct opposite of this. [. . .] In his famous essay entitled What Is Art? Tolstoy unexpectedly tells the educated reader that the peasant "needs

42 - what your life of ten generations uncrushed by hard labour has given you. You had the leisure to search, to think, to suffer--then give him that for whose sake you suffered; he is in need of it . . . do not bury in the earth the talent given you by history . . ." Leisure, then, need not be merely destructive. Progress can occur; we can learn from what happened in the past, as those who lived in that past could not. It is true that we linve in an unjust order. But this itself creates direct moral obligations. Those who are members of the civilized elite, cut off as they tragically are from the mass of the people, have the duty to attempt to rebuild broken humanity, to stop exploiting other men, to give them what they most need--education, knowledge, material help, a capacity for living better lives [. . .]

43 - That God exists, or that the Iliad is beautiful, or that men have a right to be free and to be equal, are all eternal and absolute truths. Therefore, we must persuade men to read the Iliad and not pornographic French novels, and to work for an equal society, not a theocratic or political hierarchy. Coercion is evil; this is self-evident and men have always known it to be true; therefore they must work for a society in which there will be no wars, no prisons, no executions, in any circumstances, for any reason--for a society in which there is the highest attainable degree of individual freedom. By his own route Tolstoy arrived at a programme of Christian anarchism which had much in common with that of the "realist" school of painters and composers--Mussorgsky, Repin, Stassov--and with that of their political allies, the Russian Populists, although he rejected their belief in natural science and their doctrinaire socialism and faith in the methods of terrorism. For what he now appeared to be advocating was a programme of action, not of quietism; this programme underlay the educational reforms that Tolstoy attempted to carry out. [. . .]

If it were not for ignorance, human beings could not be exploited or coerced.

http://www.counterpunch.org/williams06302006.html

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3284

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/press/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=40

http://www.yalereviewofbooks.com/archive/winter05/review03.shtml.htm

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/7/24/145554/061

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seandonahue/

http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/corporateHRviolators.html

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/123996/1/4536

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/14615385.htm
a book review of "Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn't Want You to Know and What You Can Do About Them," by Cynthia Shapiro.http://www.washtech.org/news/labor/display.php?ID_Content=5035Second, a report by Workers Rights Watch on the National Labor Relations Board. The e-mail says, "the NLRB, which is tasked with playing referee to employers, workers, and their unions, is also playing coach to unionbusting employers. We rounded up a series of decisions from 2005 that read like a playbook for how employers can bust unions and not get caught."http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/workersrights/eye1_2006.cfm

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=registration.general&returnURL=action%3Dnews%2Edisplay%5Farticle%26mode%3DC%26NewsID%3D5134

http://www.zmag.org/hahnelaudio.html (this talk in part)http://www.jonahhouse.org/Hahnel,%20Robin.htm (the entire talk)

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/123996/1/4536

Against John Perkins (which at this point seems more likely to me)http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2006/Feb/02-767147.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601265.htmlIn Perkins' defense:http://www.JohnPerkins.orgConfessions of an Economic Hit Man

from "The Post-Corporate World" by David C. Korten (remember him?)

[Note: Again, I do not claim to agree necessarily with all of what is written here -- JH]

9 - For nearly three hundred years Western societies, and increasingly societies the world over, have been living out a deadly tale inspired by the basic precepts of Newtonian physics. According to this tale,

The universe resembles a giant clockwork set in motion by a master clock maker at the beginning of creation and left to run down with time as its spring unwinds. In short, we live in a dead and wasting universe. Matter is the only reality, and the whole is no more nor less than the aggregation of its parts. By advancing our understanding of the parts through the reductionist processes of science, we gain dominion over the whole and the power to bend nature to our ends.

10 - Consciousness is an illusion; life is only an accidental outcome of material complexity. We evolved through a combination of chance genetic mutations and a competitive struggle in which those more fit survived and flourished as the weaker and less worthy perished. Neither consciousness nor life have meaning or purpose. People are just extremely complicated machines, whose behavior is dictated by knowable natural laws.

Competition for territory and survival is the basic law of nature. We cannot expect humans to be or become more than brutish beasts driven by basic instincts to survive, reproduce, and seek distraction from existential loneliness through the pursuit of material gratification. A primary function of the institutions of civilized societies is to use the institutional control structures of hierarchy and markets to channel our dark human instincts toward economically productive ends.

This story has had numerous positive effects. It liberated Western societies from the stultifying intellectual tyranny of the church and gave legitimacy to learning through empirical observation. It brilliantly focused attention on mastering the material world and gave rise to extraordinary advances in scientific knowledge and technology that brought previously unimaginable affluence to some 20 percent of the world's population and propelled our species into new levels of planetary awareness and communication.

The story's negative effects, however, are now putting us on a path of self-destruction. It has led to the embrace of money as the defining value of contemporary societies and given birth to a hedonistic ethic of material self-gratification; the hierarchical, control-oriented megainstitutions of the state and the corporation; and an economic system that rewards greed and destroys life.

11- Our embrace of the old story's prophecy of death is leading our species inexorably toward self-destruction. The time has come for a story that acknowledges life's creative power and inspires us to strive for new levels of consciousness and function.

This is the powerful message of theologian Thomas Berry, who argues eloquently in Dream of the Earth that our future depends on a new

12 - cosmic story that restores meaning to life and draws us to explore life's still-unrealized potentials. Such a story is taking shape and drawing inspiration from many sources, including findings from the modern physical and life sciences and the world's richly varied spiritual traditions. Though it remains both partial and speculative, the new story goes something like this:

The universe is a self-organizing system engaged in the discovery and realization of its possibilities through a continuing process of transcendence toward ever higher levels of order and self-definition. Modern science has confirmed the ancient Hindu belief that all matter exists as a continuing dance of flowing energies. Yet matter is somehow able to maintain the integrity of its boundaries and internal structures in the midst of apparent disorder.

Similarly, the cells of a living organism, which are in a constant state of energy flux, maintain their individual integrity while functioning coherently as parts of larger wholes. This ability implies some form of self-knowledge in both "inert" matter and living organisms at each level of organization. Intelligence and consciousness may take many forms and are in some way even present in matter. What we know as life may not be an accident of creation but rather integral to it, an attractor that shapes the creative unfolding of the cosmos.

To the extent that these premises are true, they suggest we have scarcely begun to imagine, much less experience, the possibilities of our own capacity for intelligent, self-aware living. Nor have we tested our potentials for self-directed cooperation as a foundation of modern social organization. Evolution, although it involves competitive struggles,violence, and death, also involves love, nurturance, rebirth, and regeneration--and is a fundamentally cooperative and intelligent enterprise.

There is substantial evidence that it is entirely natural for healthy humans to live fully and mindfully in service to the unfolding capacities of self, community, and the planet. Yet in our forgetfulness we have come to doubt this aspect of our being. Nurturing the creative development of our capacities for mindful living should be a primary function of the institutions of civilized societies. It is time that we awaken from our forgetfulness and assume conscious responsibility for reshaping our institutions to this end.

13 - Unlike the dead-universe story, this sotry beckons us to deepens our understanding of the potentials of life and consciousness and the master the art of living at both individual and societal levels. It calls us to embrace life as the defining value of society and recongize that we have the freedom and the capacity to make this choice.

Some may argue that the new story is hardly new at all. Rather, it is one of the most ancient of stories, a rediscovery of the wisdom of traditional cultures that see evidence of the hand of conscious intelligence at work in all of creation and stress the integral relationship of the individual to the community. This is partially true. What is new is the way in which this story integrates the ancient wisdom with modern scientific findings, insights, and methods of observation to achieve new understanding and potentials for growth to higher levels of individual and community function.

14 - In the past, it has been mainly biological determinists, such as sociobiologists and social Darwinists, who have turned to biology for political and economic insights, usually used to justify existing structures of racism, gender discrimination, inequality, and capitalism's ruthless competition. Those efforts have ben characterized by a limited and fatalistic view of the human condition consistent with the dead-universe story. It is radically different to look to the fuction and evolution of living systems for insights into our as yet unrealized potentials.

34 - False promises are the money world's stock in trade. Most often its Sirens sing not of greed but of a universal material paradise--a world in which modern technology will banish poverty, war, and violence by providing everyone with a life of material comfort and luxury. Yer behind the promise lies a disturbing paradox. Although money-world institutions profit from the mass production and distribution of goods and services and are leading proponents of growth in production and consumption, scarcity plays a central role in their global quest for profit.

Any economist will happily tell us that scarcity creates values. Intelligent people pay money only for goods that are scarce. which has the greater real value: air or diamonds? Air is free, diamonds are pricey. Life says air, because we must have it to live, and provides it in abundance. Money says diamonds, because they are scarce, and its institutions limit supply to inflate the price.

That's the money world's little secret. Though it promises abundance, its preference is for scarcity--the source of its profits. If wastes contaminate our municipal water supplies and create a scarcity of potable water, the money world profits from the sale of bottled drinks. Where there is a scarcity of good public transit, it profits from cars, gasoline, and road building. when soil fertility declines, it sells us more fertilizer. Where jobs are scarce, it finds labor cheap. The money world thrives on scarcity, not abundance, and its greatest prize is a monopoly that allows it to restrict supply.

38 - Market theory, as articulated by Smith and those who subsequently elaborated on his ideas, developed into an elegant and coherent intellectual construction grounded in carefully articulated assumptions regarding the conditions under which such self-organizing processes would indeed lead to socially optimal outcomes. For example,

* Buyers and sellers must be too small to influence the market price

*Complete information must be available to all participants and there can be no trade secrets

39 - *Sellers must bear the full cost of the products they sell and pass them on at the sale price.

*Investment capital must remain within national borders and trade between countries must be balanced

*Savings must be invested in the creation of productive capital.

There is, however, a critical problem [. . .] Herein lies the catch: the conditions of what we currently call a capitalist economy directly contradict the assumptions of market theory in every instance.

Bear in mind that the optimally efficient market exists only as a theoretical construction. No economy has ever fully satisfied its assumptions and probably non ever will. The challenge facing those of us who would create an economy that approximates the market's promised outcomes of fair but modest returns to capital, full employment at a living wage, and socially optimal allocation of society's productive resources is to establish a framework of rules that create as closely as possible the conditions that market theory assumes.

Unsubstantiated Shit on the Historical Unity of Some Religions

common suggestion, as articulated by biblical scholar Mark S. Smith in The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, is that the Israelite Yahweh was derived from the traditions of the Shasu, linguistically Canaanite nomads from southern transjordan. An Egyptian inscription from the Temple of Amun at Karnak from the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BCE) refers to the "Shasu of Yhw," evidence that this god was worshipped among some of the Shasu tribes at this time. Biblical archaeologist Amihai Mazar, in Archaeology of the Land of the Bible Volume I, suggests that the association of Yahweh with the desert may be the product of his origins in the dry lands to the south of Israel. Egyptologist Donald Redford, in Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, suggests that the Israelites themselves may have been a group of Shasu who moved northward into Canaan in the 13th century BCE, appearing for the first time in the stele of Merenptah, and as Israel Finkelstein has shown in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts settled the Samarian and Judean hills at this time.Even Earlier there are signs that Yahweh was worshipped as Yah at Ebla (2,350 BCE) and as Yaw at Ugarit (1800-1200 BCE), where he was one of the Elohim (Canaanite 'lhm) - the sons of El. Jean Bottero in Mesopotamia:Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, suggests that Yah was the West Semitic version of the Akkadian God of Wisdom Ea, a name derived from the Sumerian E=house, A=water, a title given to the Sumerian God Enki. Yah and Ea were pronounced alike. Yahweh, like Ea was the creator of humankind, who saved the flood hero (Noah / Utnapishtim) from the flood.--Wikipedia, “Tetragrammaton”Many higher-level relationships between PIE and other language families have been proposed. Due to the great time depths, there is necessarily a great deal of speculation involved, and as a result the proposals are very controversial. Perhaps the most widely accepted proposal is of an Indo-Uralic family, encompassing PIE and Uralic. The evidence usually cited in favor of this is the proximity of the proposed Urheimaten of the two families, the typological similarity between the two languages, and a number of apparent shared morphemes. Frederik Kortlandt, while advocating a connection, concedes that "the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge", while Lyle Campbell, an authority of Uralic, denies any relationship exists. Other proposals, further back in time (and correspondingly less accepted), model PIE as a branch of Indo-Uralic with a Caucasian substratum; link PIE and Uralic with Altaic and certain other families in Asia, such as Korean, Japanese, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut (representative proposals are Nostratic and Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic); or link some or all of these to Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, etc., and ultimately to a single Proto-World family (nowadays mostly associated with Merritt Ruhlen). Various proposals, with varying levels of skepticism, also exist that join some subset of the putative Eurasiatic language families and/or some of the Caucasian language families, such as Uralo-Siberian, Ural-Altaic (once widely accepted but now largely discredited), Proto-Pontic, etc.Wikipedia, “Proto-Indo-European language”According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov, there are only five main archtypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies[2], and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:1. God of the Sky2. God of Thunder3. God of the Earth/Underworld4. Cultural Hero5. Great GoddessThe Sky and Thunder gods were heavenly deities, representing the ruling class of society, and in subsequent cultures they were often merged into a single supreme god. On the other hand, the Earth god and the Cultural Hero were earthly gods, tied to nature, agriculture and crafts, and in subsequent cultures they were often split into more deities as societies grew more complex. And while it seems there existed some enmity between the Thunderer and the God of the Earth (which may be echoed in myths about battle of various thunder gods and a serpentine enemy, see below), the Cultural Hero seems to be a sort of demigod son of either the Sky God or the Thunder God, and was considered to be the ancestor of the human race, and the psychopomp. Together with the character of Great Goddess, who was a wife of the ruling Sky God,Wikipedia, “Proto-Indo-European religion”A proto-Sinaitic mine inscription from Mount Sinai reads ’ld‘lm understood to be vocalized as ’il dū ‘ôlmi, 'Ēl Eternal' or 'God Eternal'.The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title dū gitti 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II (c. 1435–1420 BCE) The title dū gitti is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Cross (1973, p. 19) points out that Ptah is often called the lord (or one) of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of Ēl with Ptah that lead to the epithet ’olam 'eternal' being applied to Ēl so early and so consistently. (However in the Ugaritic texts Ptah is seemingly identified instead with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis.)Wikipedia, “El (god)”This is a partial list of possible Proto-Semitic deities.· *Il-Āh (Supreme God, see El, Elyon, Elohim and Allah)· *Ad' (Storm God, see Adad, Hadad, Adonai and Adonis.o Ba'al and Bel may have been aspects of *Ad', possibly in the form of a fertility god.· There was also a mother goddess (See Astarte, Ashtoreth, Asshur and Ishtar)According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov, there are only five main archtypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies[2], and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:1. God of the Sky2. God of Thunder3. God of the Earth/Underworld4. Cultural HeroGeneticsThe rise of Archaeogenetic evidence which uses genetic analysis to trace migration patterns also added new elements to the puzzle. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, one of the first in this field, recently used genetic evidence to in some ways combine Gimbutasʼ and Colin Renfrewʼs theories together. Here Renfrewʼs agricultural settlers, moving north and west, partially split off eventually to become Gimbutasʼ Kurgan culture which moves into Europe.In any case, developments in genetics take away much of the edge of the sometimes heated controversies about invasions. They indicate a strong genetic continuity in Europe; specifically, studies by Brian Sykes show that some 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the Paleolithic, suggesting that languages tend to spread geographically by cultural contact rather than by invasion and extermination, i.e. much more peacefully than was described in some invasion scenarios, and thus the genetic record does not rule out the historically much more common type of invasions where a new group assimilates the earlier inhabitants (e.g. Romans in Southern Europe, Britons in Brittany, Arabs in North Africa, Slavs in Russia, Chinese in Southern China, Spanish in Mexico and Turks in Anatolia, etc.). This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:The Process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the indigenous groups.On the other hand, such results also gave rise to a new incarnation of the "European hypothesis" suggesting the Indo-European languages to have existed in Europe since the Paleolithic (see Paleolithic Continuity Theory).“Proto-Indo-Europeans”
Neolithic religionFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchThe Neolithic religion is the hypothetical religion believed by the people in the Neolithic period in the Levant and Europe, and probably related to the Indoeuropean and Semitic religions.Deities and SpiritsThese are the possible Deities, Spirits and other characters from Neolithic Mythology. The Mother Goddess seems to be the Supreme deity (see Venus figurines).DeitiesMother Goddess: Indo-European: *Dg'hōm (Earth Goddess), Semitic: Atiratu (fertility goddess)Sky God: Indo-European: *Dyeus (sky God), Semitic: *Ilu (sky god)Thunder God: Indo-European: *Perkwunos / *Tarun, Semitic: *Haddu / *Ba'luGod of Death and the Underworld: Indo-European: *Yemnos, Semitic: YawSun Goddess in Sun Boat: Indo-European: *Sawelyosyo, Semitic: *Śamšu, Pre-Indo-European: See StonehengeMoon God: Indo-European: *Ménot, Semitic: *WarihuLesser SpiritsMinor Spirits*: Indo-European: Pan / Faunus, Cernunnos, Brownie, Domovoi, Tomte, Genii, Nymph, Faeries, Semitic: Jinn, Se'irim, Teraphim, Tawaret & Bes (Egyptian)Serpent: Indo-European: Jörmungandr, Typhon, Vrtra, Veles, Illuyanka, Semitic: Tiamat, Lotan, Tannin, Pre-Indo-European: See Ley lines (possibly related)*The spirits were of Household and Nature spirits.Others'Earth-Man': Indo-European: Manu (from *Dg'hōm-on, sometimes a god), Semitic: Adapas and `Adamu (from *`Dm)Axis mundi: Indo-European: World tree, Mount Olympus, Semitic: Trees of Knowledge and Life in Eden, Mount Sinai, see also Daniel 4:10-12 (possibly a Babylonian version)Motifs in Neolithic MythologyThe TwinsThese are two twins, one is sacrificed (Remus, Tuisto, Abel, Osiris) and becomes the God of Death, the other sacrifced his twin (Romulus, Mannus, Cain, Seth) and starts mankind. They are the sons of the supreme god.Indo-European mythologies have Yemnos and Manu - Romulus and Remus (Roman), Castor and Pollux (Greek), Tuisto and Mannus (Germanic).Semitic mythologies have Cain and Abel (Hebrew) , Lahmu and Lahamu (Mesopotamian). In Egyptian mythology Seth and Osiris may be related.The Thunder God's EpithetIn Neolithic mythology, the Thunder god is probably the (if not one of few) gods that have an epithet to their name. In Indo-European, *Perkwunos had the epithet *Tarun, so Perkwunos Tarun meant The thundering Striker. In Semitic, *Haddu had the epithet *Ba'lu, so Haddu Ba'lu meant The Thunder lordWikipedia, "Neolithic Religion"
http://fantalov.tripod.com/idea.htmhttp://www.ceisiwrserith.com/pier/whatwasreligion.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic(thing with Il-Ah, etc, from “Semitic gods”)http://www.historyofreligions.com/forum1.htmhttp://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley_1.htmlhttp://www.eblaforum.org/library/bcah/intbibarch05.html
http://www.scn.org/rdi/kw-3so.htmhttp://afrikaworld.net/afrel/http://afrikaworld.net/afrel/goddionah.htmhttp://www.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/books/atoms/fred.html

------------------------------------More on Africa, from Wikipedia: These sites are more political than religious per se, but where else am I going to put these links?:
from "Africa", Wikipedia:

Africa Action Africa Action is the oldest organization in the United States working on African affairs. It is a national organization that works for political, economic and social justice in Africa.African Anarchism: The History of a MovementAn Irish anarchist in Africa, western Africa from anarchist perspective.Commission for AfricaAfrican Unification FrontWorking class history in Africa -- people's and grassroots histories
And stuff from Wikipedia's "Economy of Africa" (again, where else to put it?):
Africa: Living on the Fringe - Monthly Review. Samir Amin offers a Marxist analysis of Africa's continued economic crisis.Africa's Failed Economic History - Yale Economic ReviewLending Africa an Invisible Hand - Yale Economic ReviewBBC: Africa's EconomyAfrica Economic AnalysisWorld Economic Forum - AfricaAfrican Development Bank GroupIMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) -- September 2003 -- Public Debt in Emerging MarketsLanguage and Africa