Repost from the old site. Rightwing anti-Communists (and for that matter, Centrist and liberal US anti-Communists also) have some very peculiar attitudes about Communism, shaped by the Cold War. Communism, it appears, is some strange, evil and insane system, a crazy, idiotic and totally failed economic and social system that brought nothing but misery, hunger, starvation and poverty to the world, while bringing nothing good. The alternative was capitalism, which would at some point conquer hunger, poverty, starvation and all that. Capitalism is always supposed to conquer these things at some point in the future. Capitalist polemicists usually say, “Just give it some time…” With the neoliberalism that has been pushed since 1980 and has brought nothing but misery and impoverishment to billions and caused many millions of deaths, we have always been told that it would start working pretty soon now…maybe next year…victory is right around the corner. The truth is that after 25 years of neoliberalism, the verdict is in and a long report has documented it quite well. Nearly everywhere it has been tried, neoliberalism has benefited the top 2
Even in the US, from 1980-1992, the top 2
Neoliberalism, nearly everywhere, resulted in lowered economic growth rates, massive debt, plunging wages and living standards for the majority, reductions in access to health and eduction, and reductions in many health and education metrics like infant mortality, life expectancy and the percentage of children in school at various ages. This is because neo-liberalism mandated massive cuts in all social services, especially education and health care. The outcome was foretold. The truth about neoliberalism is that it has always been a scam in which the West, especially Western banks, corporations and investors, ripped off the rest of the World blind and the people were always left holding the bag. Nevertheless, the ripoff artists keep trying to sell their neoliberal snake oil around the world, but more and more nations are no longer buying. Most of the countries of Latin America have tired of the “checks in the mail” neoliberal snipe hunt, and collectively, they are trying, in their own often-limited ways, to dislodge themselves from the grip of the neoliberal plague. Even mainstream economists admit that Latin America (macroeconomically) did not benefit from the neoliberal fad. Recently, Argentina paid off its foreign debt and said no more. In Venezuela, Chavez is trying to forge a completely new path that is, instead of the Communism his detractors libel him with, in truth nothing more than a reformation of capitalism. President Lula in Brazil has been hampered by the death grip of both investor capital and the markets; he has not been able to do much at all. Uruguay has elected a strident Leftist, but it is not known what he can do given his restraints. Chile, after the utter failure of Pinochet’s radical free market economics (something the free market crazies have never owned up to), has elected a socialist and a woman as President, Bachelet. It is not known what she can do in terms of progress, but Chile still has an education and health sector that is in pretty good shape and sports good metrics to show for it. In Ecuador, Rafael Correa is President, and he has formed an alliance with Chavez. It remains to be seen what he can do in terms of progress, as his options, as usual, are limited. In Bolivia, Evo Morales, an Indian, has won a very close election in a country where a small White elite has always run roughshod over the majority Indian population. His options are also limited, but Morales’ rhetoric has at least been almost as radical as Chavez’. A major problem in Bolivia is the mestizos in the East of the country (Santa Cruz Province) who despise the Indians the West as inferior while they sit on top of Bolivia’s rich natural gas deposits. They are making noises about succession, but they will never try it. In Mexico, AMLO (Lopez-Obrador), a Leftist, actually won the election, but due to the usual fraud, the PAN (a rightwing Catholic party that rose out of the religious hot war in Mexico in the 1920’s that left 70,000 dead) now holds the presidency. Felipe Calderon is the PAN President and he won’t do a damned thing to solve the problems that have caused an incredible 1
As an example of such problems, the family of one man, Carlos Slim, the head of the private Mexican phone monopoly, controls 5
There has been some resistance to this semi-feudal order. A very radical movement has tried to overthrow the corrupt and brutal dictatorial government of Oaxaca state. The Zapatistas* are still alive, and recently a Leftist group, the EPL*, has started to blow stuff up again, after disappearing for three years. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega was re-elected, but he appears to have softened his rhetoric to the point where he cannot do much. Still, he has formed an alliance with Chavez. Nicaragua, now the second poorest country in Latin America, lies in corrupt ruins. Support for the considerably neutered Sandinistas is higher than reported in the ruling class media – although Ortega had 3
Under the Sandinistas, Nicaragua went from one of the worst to one of the best in Central America for literacy and health care figures. In 1990, Violeta Chamorro, adored by the whole US political spectrum, including the Cruise Missile liberals of the US Democratic Party, won the election. Right away, she ended free education, requiring students to spend $35 a year on uniforms, a fee that immediately threw large numbers of kids out of school. Most have yet to return. She also got rid of free health care, so most of the population is without health care again. The health and education figures for the nation have shown the expected collapse. It is interesting that Democratic Party liberals are apparently overjoyed about this situation, showing the bankruptcy of their ideology. Most of the rest of the continent is collapsed in the usual ruins. 1 million people die every year from hunger in Latin America, and this has been going on for decades. How come this stuff never makes it to the “Worst Killers in Recent History” contests? The anti-Communist line about Communism divorces it from its concrete realities in the sort of totally rotten social and economic systems that have spawned peasant revolutions for centuries before Karl Marx was even born. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s and the fall of the Warsaw Pact, rightwingers rejoiced. It was the “end of history”, said Francis Fukuyama. The era of peasant revolts was over. Never again would humanity have to worry about any Marxist, Leftist, worker, peasant, or even populist revolution. Capitalism was here to say, in all of its forms, from most enlightened to most hideous, and no one could do a damn thing about it! Well, that is nonsense. Anti-Communists say that revolutions happen for no reason at all, other than the insane desire of Communist madmen to seize power and impose their failed system on an unwilling population. They say that revolutions do not arise from horrible social and economic systems – they arise from sick Marxist pathology. Get rid of Marxism, they say, and capitalism can run wild on humanity again. Perhaps we can even re-instate feudalism and slavery while we are at it. After all, they were both great for business. Amidst the deafening racket of nonsense, a series of economic figures looms up at us like a ghost from the recent Peruvian past. In back of those figures, 15 years later in 1980, like an Inca God rising up from the grave to slay the Spanish invaders 450 years after they waded ashore, is the frightening shadow of the Peruvian Shining Path*, another “totally insane” Marxist group that arose “for no reason whatsoever other than sheer evil”. Yet the figures below show us why a revolution, even one as insane as Sendero Luminoso, was inevitable: From the Peruvian National Planning Institute in Bejar, Peru, in 1965, we learn that the 24,000 families of the White ruling class in Lima had an income of $62,000/yr*. The entire rest of the country had an average family income of $157. The Indians of the Sierra, who even now have a life expectancy of only 45 years, had an average family income of only $10 a year. *All figures in 1965 US dollars. Most people agree that things have only gotten worse in Peru since then. Look at those figures above and tell that that is not kindling and kerosene for bloody revolution. The match was called Sendero, and someone was going to toss a match sooner or later. There were centuries in Peru before 1965, four of them, and they build on our tale. From 1526 (when the Spaniards came to Peru) to 1630, the Indian population declined from 13 million to 600,000 – a loss of 9
For the next three centuries, the Indians were tied to the land like serfs, bonded in debt peonage in a feudal estate society. This continued until well into the 1970’s. The jungle Indians were enslaved and killed for sport starting in the 1800’s and continuing until 50 years or so ago. It is 1980. The bump and lurch of the dialectic, from Hegel to Marx to This is an example, from the city of Cherboksary, Russia, of the most failed economic system ever known to mankind – Communism. The fountains you see are inferior and worthless – totally failed fountains, if you will. The buildings in the background as are complete failures as buildings, since they are dull and boring. Those buildings are called “socialist housing” and everyone in the West agrees that this type of housing does not work. What works much better are the capitalist slums in the pictures to follow. The river is quite clean and this is another example of complete failure. Much better are the black rivers of capitalist slums, stinking with garbage, animal corpses and raw sewage. Why? Because diseases and smells are exciting! Who wants to be bored, anyway? Even the bright greenery in the foreground in a total failure – it’s much better to have live amidst the mounds of garbage you see below. Capitalist slums, with their thrill a minute and constant search for food, are the only way to go. A slum in Brazil. This is the successful system that works. Much better than that failed, dull socialist housing above, no? When are you moving in, reader? Men pick through a garbage dump, probably in Nairobi. Slums in Nairobi make up
Slums of Nairobi. This is the only viable system on Earth, capitalism. All of the alternatives, especially Communism, are failed and don’t work. As you can see, this system works great. Communist housing fails because it is dull, boring and lifeless. It is much better to live in lively, exciting surroundings like this Nairobi slum, where I assure you there is never a dull movement. How dare those evil Commies try to move these people into “failed” Soviet-style high-rises! An excellent example of capitalist education from Africa. Capitalism hates education, everywhere and at all times, because the capitalists can’t make any money off of it, and the capitalists all send their kids to fancy private schools, hence they resent paying for a system they do not even use. So capitalism, under neoliberalism, has predictably devastated education systems around the Third World. Who needs to get educated anyway? The problem of the 3rd World is too many kids! Besides, Black people are so dumb that all attempts to educate them are a waste of time, or so The Bell Curve told me. Slums of Brazil. The problem is these Brazilians have too damn many kids! Yet the evidence shows that Brazil’s birthrate is actually below replacement level. Never matter, in that case, the poor should quit having babies altogether! Somehow, Westerners always find a way to blame the victim. Of course, Brazil having the worst rich-poor gap on Earth could not have anything to do with this situation, now would it? By 2020, 4
The charming slums of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is home to 12 million people – 4 million of them in 800 different favelas, or slums. All of these slums are run by gangs of drug dealers, who engage in continuous battles with each other and the police, that is, when they are not engaging in armed robberies, kidnappings and homicides. Recent articles in the Western press have hailed the dramatic improvements in these slums. As you can see here, they are so much better than they used to be! Residents of a slum in Nairobi trudge through the garbage on their way home. Nairobi has an out of control crime rate, but of course that has nothing to do with the fact that these folks live in slums. It is because the criminals are evil and commit crimes for no reason at all. Furthermore, they are Black, and Black people are genetically natural born criminals. They’re just a race of Bad Seeds, and nothing can be done about them at all. The wonderful slums of Mumbai again! This is the high tech economy that is taking the world by storm, the envy of the planet. Check out that high tech dishwasher this girl is using – I bet it was designed by those IT professionals down in Bangalore! Go, India go! The truth about India is, of course, more tragic than Tom Friedman (see below) can figure out. By 1985, capitalism was killing between between 2.92 and 4 million every year in India, and 1.76 million were being killed in Bangladesh. That is 5.25 million people being killed by capitalism every year in just those two countries alone. But wait a minute! Capitalism doesn’t kill anyone. Stalin and Mao were the worst killers of the 20th century, dontcha know? Since Communism doesn’t work, we have to go with the only alternative, the system that works, capitalism. This photo shows you just how great it works in Mumbai, India. Noam Chomsky reports that, comparing China and India, which had similar developmental figures in 1949, there have been 100 million excess deaths in Indian from 1947-1979. This clearly shows the superiority of Chinese Communism, at least when it comes to saving lives. Note that China’s superior figures even include all of those killed by Maoism, which may number over 20 million people. But Maoism saved far more, and China set a world record with the fastest doubling of life expectancy by any country, going from 32 in 1949 to 65 in 1976, surpassing Joseph Stalin’s record set in 1956. Now in China, gone heavily over to capitalism, millions are dying from lack of health care alone. Getting back to India, recent figures show that there are 4 million excess deaths in India every single year. Gideon Polya calculates that excess infant mortality alone, compared to a model of Sri Lanka, kills 2.7 million Indians per year. Slums of Mumbai. 6 million people – 6
Working backwards and forwards from Chomsky’s figures above of 4 million deaths per year in India from capitalism, which he got from Indian economist Amratya Sen, we can guess that capitalism may have killed 170 million Indians since 1949 as compared to the Chinese model. But wait, aren’t Communists the worst killers of them all? Don’t like the way I do figures? Try these instead then. Capitalism kills 14 million people every single year just by starvation, mostly in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan).
*This blog does not support the project of Sendero Luminoso, as they kill people who are completely innocent. It does support the Zapatistas and the EPL in Mexico.
Repost from the old site. In the comments section, Uncle Milton comments that Mexican history shows that Mexican revolutions have quickly turned into kleptocracies. He also says that the Mexican electorate has more sense than we think they do. He also makes a lot of good points about Mexico and decides that it is neither a capitalist nor socialist state, but some sort of a kleptocratic oligarchic state. I argue, first, that the Mexican electorate is ignorant and does not vote in its best interests. Second, that we Americans owe the Mexican revolution a tremendous debt and that the achievements of the revolution are deliberately ignored and downplayed by the US ruling class. Third, that while the revolution did degenerate into a corrupt, fat, lazy, greedy and fake-revolutionary PRI mess, it did make very real and substantial achievements. Fourth, that no socialist on Earth would claim Mexico, one of the most unequal states on Earth. Fifth, that Mexico is actually a fairly wealthy country. If you’re a poor Mexican, like most of them are, you have to vote for the Left and against the oligarchy. It’s the only rational thing to do. Mexicans haven’t voted for the Left and won since Cardenas in the 1930’s. The Rightwing parties, including the fake revolutionary PRI, haven’t done fuck-all for the poor Mexicans since 1920. The PRI was originally a revolutionary party that went corrupt and bad with time, stasis, greed and inertia. It’s true that the Mexicans voted for Cardenas and the Left in 1988 and had the votes stolen from them. In the last election, they voted Left again, for AMLO, and it was stolen again. I think you have to agree that the Left is the party that is going to benefit poor Mexicans the most. They may well be bad to neutral for middle class and rich Mexicans, but they will be good for the poor. As for the rightwing parties, what have they done for Mexicans in the last 80 years? US conservative apologists need to explain why conservative politics has failed the Mexican poor so horribly for most of the last century and all of this one. When is rightwing politics going to start working down there, anyway? I say they had their chance. Milton:Historically rebellions and revolution in Mexico have led to the same old kleptocrats running the show. This is not really completely true if you are arguing that all Mexican revolutions have failed. The Mexican revolution was a great thing. 10-20 million people died, but it had to be done, just like World War 2. You must understand that prior to Pancho Villa, Mexicans lived in a state of feudalism. I am not kidding. Read descriptions of Mexicans in 1910. The revolution broke up the big feudal estates and destroyed the power of the Catholic Church who supported the feudal lords. The reason Americans don’t know this is because we were not taught this. At the time, our government hated the Mexican revolution and supported the feudal lords, and it probably still hates the Mexican revolution, because the American government hates all populist rebellions. They don’t want us to know about a successful populist revolution in Mexico, or anywhere. One thing the revolution did was give land to the average Mexican. It is the case to this day. Most Mexicans have access to land if they wish to farm it, often collectively. These collective farms have been very successful for the last 90 years, at least in terms of warding off starvation and putting food in stomachs. Our government never teaches us this either because they don’t want us to know about a successful experiment in collective agriculture. At least the average Mexican can eat; he need not go hungry. To this day, Mexico has one of the lowest rates of malnutrition in Latin America. The revolution also created public schools and public health care. Most Mexicans do have access to free and public health care. The health care is not the greatest, and you may have to wait ages, but it’s there. In the rural areas, many kids are pulled out of schools to work on farms, but the schools do exist. The US should be indebted to the Mexican revolution. When Central America was in flames in the 1980’s, did you notice that Mexico was quiet? At the time, I asked my Mother why Mexico was not in flames and she shrugged her shoulders and said, “They already had their revolution.” We should throw a shout out to Pancho Villa that he kept Tijuana from becoming San Salvador in 1989. It’s clear that this venal Mexican elite uses the US border as a safety valve to send their poor to the US so the rich don’t have to share with them. I think that rightwingers in the US ought to admit that conservatism in Mexico has failed in that it has caused the illegal immigrant crisis in the US. To call Mexico a socialist country is an insult to socialists everywhere. If it were a decent social democracy, I do not think we would be having all these Mexicans flooding up here. Mexico is not a poor country. It has a PCI of almost $13,000/yr, and that is not bad. Mexico has Author Robert LindsayPosted on Categories Americas, Capitalism, Catholicism, Christianity, Conservatism, Economics, Education, Health, Hispanics, History, Illegal, Immigration, Latin America, Left, Mexicans, Mexico, Nutrition, Political Science, Politics, Public Health, Regional, Religion, Reposts From The Old Site, Socialism, South America, The Americas, VenezuelaLeave a comment on Pancho Villa, Presente!
Frederic, apparently an Aztlanista reconquista traitor who has listened to one too many Latrino Studies lectures, comments. His comments are in the blockquotes.
But I guess if Mexico gets it shit together and becomes a first world, thriving country somewhen in the future, then a political reconquista will probably be the inevitable.
This will never happen. Mexico will always be Mexico because it is full of Mexicans. Nothing can change this reality. Anyway, if it did happen, the US would hopefully attack Mexico. Any sane US government would send in the army and secure the area. We should also probably start deporting the Chicano traitors who sided with the enemy if this ever came up. As you can see, I am not an America-hating traitor at all. In fact, I am a patriot and these Reconquista weenies really bring out the flagwaver in me. This is why I say that Aztlan theory is dangerous, and Aztlanistas are worse than assholes. They are traitorous assholes. And if Aztlan theory ever catches fire and gains mass support, we will be in a world of shit and God help us. Luckily, there is no sign of that occurring.
This would especially happen if Mexican Americans educated themselves and found out the shit Mexican Americans went through and the broken promises for those Mexicans who stayed in US gained lands after the U.S.-Mexican war.
I assume they have all been brainwashed about this stuff in classes, but almost none of them seem to care. Honestly. I know these people very well.
They’d probably feel alien and disillusioned with the country of the US (especially if they remain unassimilated).
Won’t happen. Once Latinos get to be a majority anywhere, they are happier than pigs in shit, except for professional radicals and complainers. And after 2-3 generations, 10
As a matter of fact Robert, your city is an example of reconquista.
Not really. Whites still run this town. I think the Latinos like it that way. We know how to run municipalities. They don’t. Once a city goes all Latino, it’s government goes all Latino, and the place basically falls apart turns into “Little Mexico.” The Mexicans with any brains and sense take note of when the last White person packed up and start packing their bags themselves. If you ask them why they left, they will say the place went to Hell when all the Whites left.
Most Hispanics will probably be united by the same idiocy that plagues the common American mind: the notion of a “Hispanic” race.
They already are, and they’re some of the stupidest humans I have ever met when it comes to race. They have no understanding of biological race whatsoever. Anyway, they’re already all united under “Latino,” and the loony Aztlan notion has no support.
There is an article posted on American Renaissance by a Black Cuban complaining about anti-Black racism in Cuba. The article is correct, but the Cuban exiles (gusanos) make too much of this. Things were much worse when the gusanos ran things. Many comments followed. As a socialist and liberal race realist, I must say there was a lot of nonsense written in these comments. Amren comments are italicized, and my comments follow.
I guess racial relations as well as government took a big backward step with Fidel. Not so unless you are a segregationist. Cuba had legal Jim Crow segregation and hardcore discrimination against Blacks pre-Castro. That’s all been swept aside now, maybe forever. The Blacks complain, but it’s better now than it was then. There is more democracy than under Batista, and Castro has mass popular support while Batista never did. Pre-revolution, there was nearly a one-drop rule, and there was little intermarriage, or those that did were lost to the Whites as in the South. Since the Revolution, there has been mass intermarriage. I can imagine that Cuba became a much darker and more violent country after these folks left. Darker, sure. More violent? No way. Certainly far less violent. For whatever reason, Cuba has less violent crime than any other state in the Americas, and Havana is the safest large city in the Americas. And they are both full of Blacks. I’ve long said that Blacks do well under socialism. In Mozambique under Samora Machel, you could walk across Maputo in the middle of the night and not fear a thing. You are welcome to speculate why there is little crime. The Cuban justice system is hardcore, and they don’t put up with any BS at all. Cuba has the 6th highest imprisonment rate in the world, and the prisons are of course full of Blacks. The typical rejoinder is that those are all political prisoners. I have no recent figures, but there are probably no more than 400 political prisoners on the island. The overwhelming majority of the prison population are common criminals. Perhaps the crime rate is due because of a “lock em up” philosophy? Yes, the Black intellectual class (is that an oxymoron?) have long claimed Cuba was a race less Utopia. Well, there is probably less racism against Blacks there than anywhere else in the Americas, FWIW. What’s their IQ?If it’s above 80… Good question. No one seems to know, but in the rest of the Caribbean, it is ~70-75. Now that we have another proof that extreme Leftist policies do nothing to improve life for Blacks can we please stop affirmative action, integration, Third World immigration, and diversity quotas? Surely not the case in Cuba, as the revolution has dramatically improved life there. Sure Blacks bitch, but Blacks complain everywhere. These are the people that Castro drove out; now he has a population similar to Haiti. His human capital is a negative! Not so. Cuba’s population looks nothing like Haiti’s. In the Americas, Cubans have the longest life expectancy in the Americas, the lowest rate of malnutrition, the lowest infant mortality rate, the most scientists per capita, are the best educated and are the healthiest people. With
They have hooked up the whole place to running water, electricity and sewage. Everyone has access to transportation and culture and wears nice clothes. Latin America has failed to do these things for some reason. Compared to the planet, Cuba has the lowest doctor patient and more agronomists per capita than anywhere else. It hardly sounds like a place with garbage human capital. And do you think these White Cuban exiles would return to Cuba given a chance to do so? No way. One thing that infuriates these Cuban Whites is that they had a lot of money in Cuba, but they took off really fast and left things behind, like their homes. Castro quickly confiscated their homes and businesses when they left. The gusanos go back to Cuba and see their fine stately homes filled with Cuban Blacks crammed into their old home, lounging on the porch, etc. The Cuban Whites are filled with rage, but do you think there is any way in Hell those Cuban Blacks are going to give those nice homes they are living in back to the Cuban White gusanos who left? Not on your life. This is partly how Castro stays in power. No one in Cuba wants those gusanos back. Cuba could implode one day and we could have a Mariel boatlift X10, or X20. Won’t happen. Those Blacks have it good, and implosion would bring back the White gusanos with vengeance on their minds. Every Cuban knows this. See bolded part above. Slums are the products of the people who live in them. Inferior people create inferior environments, despite governmental efforts to help them. Superior people create superior environments, despite persecution. It is true that the Cuban government has recently built some very nice apartment complexes for poor Blacks in Havana. Within 6 months, the Blacks had dismantled and destroyed them. There is a big debate in the Cuban sociology community right now about why the Blacks did this. Fortunately there is an alternative. Just 80km across the Windward Passage sits the black paradise known as Haiti. Cuba could easily deport all of its blacks there, where they would be among their own kind and by definition no longer oppressed. Actually, Eastern Cuba is now full up with Haitians and Jamaicans fleeing the capitalist paradises of Haiti and Jamaica. Cuba just lets them and tries to integrate them into society. Say what you will about Cuba, but Cuba looks great to your average poor Haitian or Jamaican. These Blacks think Cuba is paradise compared to the places they come from. The notion that no one ever flees to a Communist country is false.
Have you noticed that practically all these neoclassical types do is lie? There’s a reason for that. Their theory is good for the rich and the upper middle class only, and it’s crap for everyone else. They can’t come out and say that, so they have to lie to the 8
This is similar to the modus operandi of conservatism. As conservatism is always and everywhere a philosophy of the plutocrats that benefits them and some upper middle class folks and hurts everyone else, they can’t very well be honest about the nature of their class war project. This is why conservatives, everywhere and Earth and all down through the past, have always lied. Conservatism is dishonest because it must be. A philosophy that benefits the top 2
Analyses of neoliberalism in the past few decades around the world showed that it tended to benefit about the top 2
Even major ruling class organs like Time Magazine admitted that decades of neoliberalism in recent years in Latin America had largely failed. Neoclassical economics killed 15 million people in Russia alone in the 1990’s. Neoclassical economics has failed to lift people out of poverty. Peru and India have implemented neoliberal policies in recent years. After years of high growth in Peru, the poverty rate remained flat at 5
The neoclassicals caused the recent financial crisis that took out the US economy and nearly took down the world’s economy with it. Neoclassical economics destroyed Latvia, leading to a 2
Hoover’s neoclassical economics only deepened and worsened the Great Depression in the US. Neoclassical economics caused a depression in Ireland with 1
The top neoclassical economists, including Hayek and Friedman, went down to Chile and advised Pinochet on how to run his economy. They implemented the most radical experiment in neoclassical economics that has ever been tried. The result was one of the worst economic depressions in modern history. However, at the end of Pinochet’s term, workers had lost 1/3 of their wages, and there was a massive wealth transfer from the bottom 2/3 to the top 1/3. Hayek and Friedman both said that neoclassical economics was so bad for workers and ordinary people that the only way to put it in was via a dictatorship. This is why both Hayek and Friedman were huge cheerleaders for the murderous Pinochet. The countries that got creamed worst in the financial crisis were those that had followed neoclassical theories in their financial system.Iceland underwent possibly one of the most radical experiments in neoclassical restructuring of its financial sector. The result was that when Author Robert LindsayPosted on Categories Americas, Asia, Capitalism, Chile, Conservatism, Economics, Education, Eurasia, Europe, Health, History, India, Ireland, Latin America, Modern, Neoliberalism, North America, Peru, Political Science, Public Health, Regional, Russia, South America, South Asia, The Americas, US, USALeave a comment on Some Recent Failures of Neoclassical Economics
Ronald Reagan, more than anything else, is not so much America as he is White America. And he’s not so much bourgeois America as he is White America.
Vast numbers of working class Whites voted for Reagan in 1980, so many that we had to invent a new word, Reagan Democrats. Almost no Blacks, even bourgeois Blacks, voted for Reagan. The number is only 1
Ronald Reagan represents White America, from the 1950’s to the present day, from working class to ruling class. He’s their boy; he’s our boy. In the 1950’s, he worked hand in hand with Joe McCarthy’s fascist goons. As governor of California, he threatened campus protestors and cheered on the idiot Vietnam War.
As President, he committed, said and did one evil act and statement after another. “Trees cause smog.” The fawning media gave him a pass the whole time, never calling him on anything.
In the name of fighting welfare leeches, he ranted about welfare queens driving Cadillacs, while his administration threw thousands of dying cancer patients off disability after condemning them as leeches who refused to work.
Through it all, Shithead White America, from poor to billionaires, could not stop cheering long enough to sit down. He funded death squads in Central America. He cheered on the mass murderers in Guatemala in 1982 while they slaughtered 20,000 people. He started up the Contras, who spent most of their time invading schools, medical clinics and collective farms and massacring all the “Communist” teachers, aides, doctors, nurses and farmers that they found there. Some freedom fighters.
The media, across the board, loved Reagan. Criticism in the press was nearly nonexistent. In White California, critics of Reagan were ostracized as losers and Commies.
The fanatical and irrational hatred of Communism and by extension socialism, the love of the rich and hatred of the poor and working classes, the racism, the contempt and raging hatred for the environment, the insipid and lunatic Christian fundamentalism, the fear of and and contempt for “European” and urban modernity in all its forms, the idiotic love of guns, the seething hatred of unions (even by working class Whites), Ronald Reagan was simply White America personified.
If you go anywhere in White California and say two words against Ronald Reagan, you’re risking a fistfight. He’s revered there as a God to this day. In a poll of Shitheads (Americans), Reagan recently got a 5
When he left office in 1988, the entire Democratic side of the isle stood up and cheered. Even the furthest left of all, Teddy Kennedy, gave a raving speech that sounded like an elegy to the Pope himself. When I read that, I had to pinch myself to remind me that Kennedy was really a Democrat.
I’m lately reading essays about America written in the 1970’s. Some about the general idiocy of the culture, others about the Christian Right types. What’s so depressing about these essays is that they could have been written today. The culture hasn’t changed one bit, (if anything it seems much, much worse) and the fundie fanatics screaming about textbooks in West Virginia in 1975 are simply the Tea Parties, or really, the Republican Party itself.
That we haven’t budged an inch in 35 years implies that America is terminal. We can’t seem to get rid of the essential shitheadedness that is sadly part of character for time immemorial.
Connections between ancient India and the ancient American Southwest and Mexico. The author, Gene Matlock, says that most of the world’s languages derive from Sanskrit. This is a lunatic Indian nationalist claim (incredibly, huge books of up to 700 pages have been written about this bullshit) for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
An Indian connection to the Philippines and the Australian Aborigines 12,000 YBP? I’m on board. An Indian connection to the Amerindians? I say prove it.
Way too weird, and some of the stuff is fishy.
About 5,000 BC or earlier, a brilliant deified Phoenician Naga king and philosopher named Kuvera (also Kubera) learned how to smelt copper, gold, and other metals. These activities took place in the kingdom named after him, Khyber (“Kheeveri”), which consisted of a group of craggy mountains in what are now Southeastern Afghanistan and Northeastern Pakistan (i.e. the Khyber Pass).
A Copper Age at over 7,000 YBP in the Indus River Valley Civilization? I’m OK with that. But the IRVC did not extend all the way up to the Khyber Pass. However, they were smelting copper at Mehrgarh, which is located in the Bolan Pass between Quetta and Sibi, an incredible 9,000 YBP (which indicates the extremely advanced nature of the ancient Indians/Pakistanis). That’s about 350 miles south of the Khyber Pass region.
Any evidence of Indian DNA in the Americas? Nope. Not yet anyway. At 7,000 YBP, Amerindians look like Ainu or Maori Polynesians, not Indians.
Interesting theory. All you can say about all this stuff (which is frankly a dime a dozen) is prove it.
A new and very smart commenter (and apparent supporter of amnesty for illegals) asks my rationalization for opposing illegal immigration:
Is your rationalization for kicking out all the illegals primarily driven by nationalism (saving the jobs and high living standards of the United States for its “natives”) or internationalism (the (somewhat dubious in my opinion) notion that a “safety valve” into the United States for masses of the impoverished underclass discourages economic development and alleviation of poverty within Mexico)?
Nationalism of course. But I don’t see why progressives should be assisting the Mexican elite with their shit project of exporting their poor to the US so they can hog all the money and not support their own citizens. And that is what the Mexican elite is doing. Most everyone who has studied the issue agrees on that.
In fact, one argument in favor of illegals is that if we don’t let them flood in here, the safety valve will be turned off, and there will be a revolution down in Mexico. Which will be bloody and violent, and which will end up coming over here. I’ve actually heard progressive people make this argument to me.
I think it’s absurd because Mexico already had a revolution. That’s why Mexico was quiet in the 1980’s while Central America was on fire with revolution. At the time, I asked a friend of mine why Mexico was not on fire with the rest of Mesoamerica. A wise woman, she thought a moment and said, “They already had their revolution.” Well of course.
Nevertheless, as they say in Mexico, there is a revolution about every 100 years or so. The The last revolution (1910-1920) was exactly 100 years ago. It ended feudalism and gave all Mexicans land on the ejidos. No matter how shitty things get in Mexico, you can always go farm on an ejido and not starve. It’s a common lie that people starve in Mexico. Almost no one is starving; obesity is a much bigger problem. There’s plenty of food down there but not much money.
Yet the revolutionary party, the PRI (The Party of the Revolution, literally) has gone stale and now forms a far rightwing elite state in many ways. The PAN is even worse. The PRD is a progressive party, but the last two Presidential elections they won were stolen right out from under them while the entire US media, both US political parties and the US government cheered and looked the other way. If the Left keeps being denied power via peaceful means, they may well take up the gun. That’s how the revolutionary process works.
It is certainly conceivable that if the valve were shut off, the elites could come under pressure to create a more fair society by having to share with the rest of the Mexicans. The challenge would probably be peaceful and not armed at this time. In the future it may become armed. The elites are very worried about this for good reason, and that is why they use the safety valve.
Mexico does have a revolutionary tradition, even embedded in the ruling party itself. This would make it difficult for the elite to resist peaceful revolutionary forces to make a fairer Mexico. In addition, Mexicans are violent people, do not fear death (and even seem to love it in a perverse sense – see below)*, and are quite willing to slaughter huge percentages of the population in revolutionary wars if need be.
The Mexican Revolution killed 4X as many Mexicans per capita as the US Civil War did. Most Americans think the Civil War was horrible. Most Mexicans think their Civil War was wonderful.
*On All Saints Day, Mexicans go to graveyards, carry little skulls around and in general have a great big Death Party with all sorts of morbid and ghoulish imagery. This is a fatalistic land where death is everywhere and no big deal, and life is rather cheap.
A far rightwing commenter disagrees that there existed primitive communism in the past, as theorized by Marx. Instead, he opines that primitive man lived, absurdly, in some condition called “the free market.”
You could say primitive man was communal but NOT communist. There is no such thing as voluntary Socialism/Capitalism. Such are contradiction in terms, Robert. If work within a group are completely voluntary, then it is by definition a free market. If they were forced to work together, then it was some sort of authoritarian-ruled collective. Either way your argument is bunk.
Needless to say this fellow’s definition of free market (capitalism as per Adam Smith) is quite unlike any other I’ve ever heard.
Read Marx.
Many primitive tribes lived under primitive communism. There was no free market among primitive tribes, there was no market period, there was no capitalism, there was no exploitation other than maybe of slaves, there were no wages, people lived in communes, hunted, collected, farmed, etc. for the common good. Food was divided amongst all members. No one hired anyone to do anything, paid them, marked up their labor, and sold it or products based on it for profit. Hence, no capitalism, no free market.
In the Middle Ages, there were many artisans, but they were more or less free agents akin to the self-employed. Shoemakers, tailors, chimney-sweeps, etc.
Much of the rest of society was under feudalism. Before the fencing of the Commons in England that was necessary for capitalism, most were primitive artisans or small landholders. Small parcels were farmed and some livestock was held. In the meantime, households made a few items here and there for sale.
There was no labor force for the plants that the capitalists wished to build. They were building the plants and no one was coming to work in them. Since people were happy to work their small parcels and do a little household industry on the side, no one wanted to give that up to become a wage slave in some Godawful capitalist firm.
In order to create a proletariat, the Commons was fenced off, and the small landholders were driven off the land into teeming towns where they crowded, starving and in rags, a new army of proletarian workers for the capitalists. There were long debates about this in the English Parliament about the necessity of throwing all of the small householders off their land and depriving them of their livelihoods in order to create a captive workforce who needed to sell their labor to capitalists or starve.
This process has actually been repeated over and over in the modern era and continues to this day in places like India, El Salvador, Paraguay, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Philippines and Colombia where the poor are continuously being thrown off their small parcels so their lands can be seized by large landowners, and the poor farmers are hence proletarianized and turned into landless peasants.
There are even suggestions that this occurred in the early days of the US. So many Americans were becoming small landowners in the West that this raised serious problems for the creation of a captive proletariat. Hence much of the land was grabbed by the state and turned over to the railroads in an attempt to deprive small landowners of land and force them to sell their labor or starve.
Read Marx, “The Genesis of Capital.”
Capitalism is a new thing, mostly since about 1400 or so.
References
Marx, Karl. 1978. Genesis of Capital. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Mowgli, the little boy raised by wolves and befriended by Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther, first came to life during a winter in Vermont in the imagination of Rudyard Kipling.
Kipling was in Vermont because that’s where his wife’s family lived; the couple had taken up residence there and started their own family. It was American hubris, however, that soured Kipling on living in the United States.
The focus of all the dissension was British Guiana, which was in a border dispute with Venezuela. Richard Olney, the American Secretary of State, declared that the United States had a right to mediate all disputes in the Western Hemisphere. Because of the Monroe Doctrine, you know.
In other words, the United States ruled the Western Hemisphere.
This didn’t sit well with the British, including Kipling. Anti-British sentiment in America, followed by family troubles, sent him back to England.
It was a period when both Britain and the United States were settling their weight upon all kinds of native peoples around the world. Someone observing the actions of both nations might have been amused by Kipling’s distaste for American interference in Britain’s interference in South America.
“If anybody’s going to be interfering in South America, it’s going to be us,” Secretary Olney would have told him.
Kipling, who actually memorialized the imperialist ambitions of both nations, remains a figure of contradictions.
He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907, though other writers have mocked his abilities, particularly as a poet. People still argue about whether he was pro- or anti-imperialist. Many know of his poem The White Man’s Burden, for which he has been denounced – and celebrated, as a satirist.
Does anyone concerned with world affairs today, particularly heads of state, really care what Kipling may or may not have advised his fellow Whites roughly a century ago?
I’m guessing that the answer to this question is “No.” The fact that people still debate Kipling’s views is a testament to two things: the power of art, in this case literature; and the power of the idea of race.
Kipling is long gone, but there are people who seem to have some kind of stake in whether or not his views on race and empire were justified. It reminds me of the debate we have had from time to time in America over whether kids should read some of the works of Mark Twain.
Kipling’s Kim has been compared to Huckleberry Finn, in fact. Both novels tell the coming-to-maturity tale of a “loose” boy with father issues, traveling with a beloved adult male. Both novels have come under scrutiny for alleged racism – which informs the question of their appropriateness for developing minds.
School children should be taught literature. Adults wrangle over which works are to be presented to them, and how they are to be presented, because adults supervise the indoctrination of children.
They wrangle for another reason, though. The issue of race is intimately wrapped up in another issue: self-esteem.
When I say self-esteem, I mean the popular concept of having a healthy, positive self-image. Who doesn’t want kids to have a healthy, positive self-image – especially “minority” kids, those long deemed to be most in need of it?
So for quite some time, at least here in the US, we’ve been giving historical figures – be they Presidents or novelists – the PC litmus test. If someone reads anything by Kipling other than The Jungle Book (both parts), will he be contaminated by White Supremacist ideology?
We’ve decided we must be very careful about that sort of thing going into the heads of young people.
And so educators and other interested parties have put long-dead authors such as Kipling onto the front lines of their ideology wars.
In some societies necrophilia was enacted owing to a belief that the soul of an unmarried woman would not find peace; among the Kachin of Myanmar, versions of a marriage ceremony were held to lay a dead virgin to rest, which would involve intercourse with the corpse. Similar practices existed in some pre-modern Central European societies when a woman who was engaged to be married died before the wedding.
Good God, how horrible!
Cool Sculptures
Acts of necrophilia are reportedly displayed on Moche artifacts of Peru.
Yuck.
Wisdom of the Ancients
Herodotus writes in The Histories that, to discourage intercourse with a corpse, ancient Egyptians left deceased beautiful women to decay for “three or four days” before giving them to the embalmers. This practice originated from the need to discourage the men performing the funerary customs from having sexual interest in their charges.
Indeed, the same famous work discusses one Pharaonic era undertaker whose particular kink was screaming for his “Mummy” while doing the deed.
Birds and the Bees, or Animals Do It Too
Necrophilia is known to occur in animals, with a number of confirmed observations.
Kees Moeliker allegedly made one of these observations while he was sitting in his office at the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, when he heard the distinctive thud of a bird hitting the glass facade of the building. Upon inspection, he discovered a drake (male) mallard lying dead about two meters from the building. Next to the downed bird there was a second drake mallard standing close by.
As Moeliker observed the couple, the living drake picked at the corpse of the dead one for a few minutes and then mounted the corpse and began copulating with it. The act of necrophilia lasted for about 75 minutes, in which time, according to Moeliker, the living drake took two short breaks before resuming with copulating behavior.
Moeliker surmised that at the time of the collision with the window the two mallards were engaged in a common pattern in duck behavior which is called “rape flight.” “When one died the other one just went for it and didn’t get any negative feedback – well, didn’t get any feedback,” according to Moeliker. This is the first recorded case of necrophilia in the mallard duck- though not the only recorded case of homosexuality within the bird family.
The Cane Toads: an Unnatural History film shows a male toad copulating with a female toad who has been run over by a car. He goes on to do this for eight hours, although the entire eight-hour act is not depicted in the movie, thank God.
In the case of a praying mantis, necrophilia could be said to be part of their methods of reproduction. The larger female will sometimes decapitate or even eat her mate during copulation. However, this only happens in 5-3
Dang man, a queer necrophiliac birdbrain odd duck, a ugly toad fucking a toadly chick for a full eight hours without even getting bored, worrying about genital warts or stopping to eat a fly, and male praying mantises with their brains in their dicks. I’ve heard of guys thinking with their dicks before, but that’s ridiculous.
In the comments section, James Schipper asks pointedly:
The FARC may not be near defeat, but it isn’t anywhere near victory either. The FARC has been active for decades now. Has it accomplished anything positive for the Columbian masses?
That is a good question.
Considering the murderous nature of the Colombian state, why should the FARC lay down its arms? Recall that it was the murderous nature of the Colombian state that started this whole mess by forcing the Left to take up arms in the first place, since they were getting massacred while they were unarmed.
The History of the Colombian Civil War
A little background. This conflict actually started in 1928 with the Banana Massacre in the Far North. There was a banana workers strike and the state sent the army in there to break it up. They massacred something like 60-70 workers to break up the strike.
Then in 1948, Gaitan, a very progressive Liberal, was elected President on a platform of land reform and other reforms. He was quickly murdered by the Conservatives. The people rose up in rage and rebellion all over Colombia. This degenerated into general conflict between the Liberals and the Conservatives, basically over the issue of land reform and the fact that the Liberals had many progressives with them.
This led to the decade of violence called La Violencia, in which 200,000 Colombians were slaughtered. La Violencia was caused by an attempt by the Conservatives and the oligarchy to wipe out the Left. La Violencia continued into the 1960’s.
Some Communists were so sick and tired of all the fighting that they lay down their arms and formed a commune on some land called La Marquetalia. They all moved there and set up farms and whatnot. The Colombian oligarchy started agitating about “Communism in Colombia.” The CIA and the US military went down there to advise the Colombians.
As it turned out, the Colombian military waged a huge armed attack on La Marquetalia, including the use of chemical weapons, in an attempt to exterminate them. The people of Marquetalia tried to fight back, but they had few weapons. They were effectively slaughtered, but a few survived. The survivors of La Marquetalia went on the become the FARC! So that is how the FARC got its start in 1964.
What Good is the FARC?
Actually the FARC does defend the people a lot. When the death squads and army come out to murder and abduct the people, rampaging through the communities, the FARC often wages an offensive to clear them out. The FARC plays a role in defending the people from the murderous state. If the FARC gave up their guns, the people would be defenseless. I’m opposed to that.
Also, look what happened the last time the FARC laid down their guns They were slaughtered like flies. Why should they do it again?
The FARC should only disarm if they can negotiate a solution with the state such as the FMLN did in El Salvador. The FMLN negotiated an integration of the two militaries, getting rid of some notorious security forces, major changes in the corrupt judicial process, and a huge land reform. Via these changes, many of the reasons for the armed struggle went away and the FMLN was able to compete peacefully.
As is, the death squads are tremendously reduced, but still active. They kill about 6 Salvadorans a year. But the FMLN opened up enough space to compete peacefully, and they just won the Presidency. And the land reform produced lasting changes in the countryside. The FARC is only going to give up its guns if it can negotiate some major changes in the system and defang the state enough so that they can compete peacefully in elections.
If you study Latin America, you will see that rightwing death squads rampage through the region, killing progressives. Often the conflict is over land and the death squads are often run by large landowners. Also the police and military operate in the interests of the wealthy, killing progressive people. They kill peasants to steal their land or they kill peasants involved in land disputes and land takeovers.
200 have been killed in Venezuela.
1 person every day is being killed in Honduras.
About 6 a year are killed in El Salvador.
Death squads operate regularly in Guatemala, even after the war.
In Brazil, death squads in the countryside have killed 2-3,000 people in recent years.
As you can see, the Right in Latin America is murderous, whether the people are armed or not. Even if you’re not armed, they come out and kill you anyway. If you arm yourself, at least you get to fight back.
For the record, the Democratic Pole favors a negotiated solution to the war.
tulio notes, remarking on the “Chilean economic miracle” under Pinochet.
I have a Venezuelan…he fled Venezuela and now lives in Chile, a more free market country, and btw the most prosperous in Latin America. And Pinochet had a lot to do with Chile’s prosperity, even though he was a bastard. If it weren’t for him, it would be another 3rd world Latin American country. He turned that country’s economy around.
First of all, Chile is not the most prosperous in Latin America. Mexico is quite a bit wealthier than Chile. Mexico seem like a First World country to you? 2
Second, it’s debatable whether Chile is more free market than Venezuela. Chile has long had a deep social democracy in place, and Venezuela has never had crap. Much of Chavez so-called evil socialism is just him trying to put the basics of a social democratic system and a civilizational infrastructure in place where there never was one – he’s spending money on education, medical care, roads, literacy, land reform, food subsidies, housing, electrification, plumbing, sewage, water, etc.
At least in Venezuela, you have a President who is committed to the entire low income and working class portion of the population. There’s no need for him to care about, work for or help the well-off, since they’re already sitting pretty as it is.
In Chile, the low-income and working class population pretty much get a gigantic Fuck You. The state only works for the 1/3 or so upper middle class, and everyone else can buzz off. I imagine this is still the case under Bachelet, but I’m not sure.
Pinochet had nothing whatsoever to do with Chile’s “prosperity.” Truth is he ruined that country. His radical libertarianism from the Chicago School quickly caused one of the worst depressions in history. In order to climb out of it, he had to repudiate neoliberal orthodoxy and involve the state, government spending and labor in his economic project (Keynesianism).
Even that more statist project did not do well. All of that economic growth under that Pinochet clown was just the climback from the damned Depression that he caused at the start! Big deal! By the end of his term, in 1989, Chile’s GDP finally matched of Allende, the socialist whom he replaced. IOW, 16 years of total economic flatlining and failure.
To illustrate, let me give some hypothetical figures, since I don’t know the real figures. Say per capita income was $8,000/year when Allende left office. Pinochet so nuked the economy that in a few years, PCI was something like $2,000/year. From 1978-1989, there was huge economic growth, true, but they were just climbing out the rut. By 1989, his last year in office, PCI finally made it up back to $8,000 year again. Talk about spinning your wheels.
The upper classes did much better though under Pinochet, maybe the top 1/3. Everyone else got royally screwed. Average wages declined by 3
Chile is doing ok now with a much more state-interventionist economic scheme under a Socialist President, Bachelet. Much of Chile’s relatively good human development figures are due to its deep socialist and social democratic, especially health care and education: Chile has been a pretty socialist state for a long time now. Chile has a decent national health care system, and that’s the reason for its commendable health figures. Malnutrition figures are also very low; Chile does a good job of feeding its people.
Education is another matter. About 1/2 of the public schools are literally falling apart. I mean literally, as in collapsing. There’s no agenda to fix them, because the pricks who run the country all send their kids to private schools (this is how it works all over Latin America).
It’s no surprise tulio has been brainwashed about Pinochet. The US media has told nothing but lies about the guy.
The gap between the rich and the poor in Chile is absolutely insane, and the racism and class hatred is rife and toxic. The light-skinned well to do live in gated compounds or with high walls around their sumptuous homes, often with barbed wire and guard dogs. They live that way because of the out of control crime rate, especially theft, by the darker-skinned lower classes. The crime rate is a symptom of the insane inequality and class hatred in that place. Chile is just another typical Latin American shithole, a little fancier than the rest of them.
I’ve known some Chileans; their contempt for poor and working class people was palpable, and they were openly and outrageously racist against Chilean Indians. And these people were supposedly “leftwingers.”
Update: In the comments section, the brilliant James Schipper adds some good hard figures to the argument. The rich-poor gap he talks about can be represented as a Gini coefficient.
The main thing about the Chile was that the upper classes, maybe the top 1/3 or so, totally cleaned up under Pinochet. Pinochet merely dramatically shifted income from the bottom 2/3 of the population to the to top 1/3, so obviously he’s wildly popular among the well to do in Latin America. As a socialist, I’m not supposed to support Reverse Robin Hood policies. Any socialist doing that may as well hang it up and just become a Republican. Or join the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC), same thing.
It’s fascinating that neoliberals and libertarians continue to rave about this fake “miracle”. Either they’re lying, or they’re idiots.
Some people never learn.
Schipper:
Excellent post! In the early 1980s, the unemployment rate in Chile reached 2
Pinochet also privatized pensions, but guess what, the military kept their government pension plan.
According to the CIA World Factbook, the richest 1
It seems that any government that pursues neoliberal economic policies will be praised by MSM in the West while any government that does the opposite will be excoriated.
Anyone know what to make of this stuff? I think they are onto something, except for maybe the last paragraph.
I don’t know what to say about this other than compared to the usual whacked out theories like this, this one actually seems to have something to it. I don’t agree that these people were IE speakers. At least some of them probably spoke something similar to Basque or Etruscan.
People have been cruising around on boats for a long time. The first OOA folks, 75,000 YBP, left Ethiopia and sailed the 16 miles to Yemen. By 60,000 YBP, their boats had taken them to Australia.
Humans settled the Philippines, apparently by boat, as early as 30,000 YBP.
The first modern Aborigines, the Murrayans, arrived in Australia, probably from Thailand around 16,000 YBP. They must have come by boat. These seem to have been a proto-Ainu type people related to the Jomon. These same Jomon left Thailand and sailed up to Japan around the same time, where they eventually became the Ainu. Along the way, it looks like they stopped off in the Philippines.
Later, around 12,000 YBP, a group called the Carpinterians left Southern India and also populated Australia. They could only have gone by boat. This was a Veddoid-type group.
6,000 years ago, Siberians left Asia and came to America, giving rise to the Na-Dene. The latest theory is that they came by boat down the Pacific Coast, settling first in the Pacific Coast finger of Alaska that extends southeastward.
Repost from the old blog. You anti-Semites should go nuts over this one. Interesting stuff. Ynet has some great articles about the Jews. Click the link for more. Every society with prostitution has its pimps, of course. In the US, pimping seems to be dominated by Blacks. I haven’t heard of many White pimps, but I guess they exist. Part of the sickness and baseness of US Black ghetto culture is the glorification of the pimp and the streetwalker. We haven’t many Blacks around here, but the few pimps and streetwalkers around here are almost always Black. I understand that Albanians dominate the prostitution trade in the UK. The anti-Semitic image of Jew as pimp and peddler of filth and depravity (Peddle some my way!) lacks a sound basis. However, in Argentina, Brazil, Poland and the Ukraine, Jews dominated the prostitution trade. In one case, in Poland around 1910, there was a Jewish pogrom against the pimps! Pogroms in Poland around this time were often organized around the theme of “Jews are prostituting our women,” and the local Jews had had enough. I think that 100 pimps were killed in this pogrom. I’m not sure if they killed prostitutes too. It’s an anti-Semitic lie that due to Jewish dual morality, Jews will only prostitute Gentile girls. The evil Jews are turning out our pure White women! In the case of the Zwi Migdal, it looks like they were only prostituting Jewish girls. I understand that the pimps of Israel (where there is a thriving sex trade) often traffic in Jewish in addition to Gentile women). The Zwi Migdal were not supported by the Jewish community at large, to its credit. It lasted from 1870-1930. Even by the turn of the century, Argentina had a very large Jewish population and it still has about 400,000 Jews.
Your choices: 1. Incas 2. Aztecs 3. Maya I’m going to rule out the Aztecs right away because though they built some really awesome pyramids, that’s pretty much about all they did. I believe that they did not reach the mathematical and astronomical advances of the Mayas. Some even say that the pyramids were built by the Olmecs who were there previously. Why build a pyramid? Note pyramids are the first huge buildings ever built by primitive folks. Start piling rocks, dirt, sand, whatever on a flat surface. After a while, what you do you have? Wa-la! A pyramid. It’s the most simple, basic and reasonable architechtural building. Building those straight up and down things like those 9-11 towers is way harder, plus they have much more tendency to fall over. So to me it’s down to the Mayas and the Incas. I want to say Incas, with their amazing cities, incredible irrigation systems, and advanced crop breeding. Further, the Incas made it out of the Stone Age 4000 years ago, when they started making stuff of gold, silver and copper and the Mayas stayed in the Stone Age through their entire classic period that ended in 900 or so. The Mayas are an incredible tale of an extremely advanced Stone Age society! They almost don’t make sense and seem like something out of science fiction. All that great stuff they made was built with stone tools! Why didn’t they work metals? If there were any nearby, maybe they would have, but the nearest iron deposits were 1,500 miles away. By the time the Spaniards showed up in 1500’s though, the Mayas were out of the Stone Age and were making stuff, most ornaments, out of gold, silver and copper (It’s not true that the Mayan civilization completely collapsed – this is myth). Some argue that to be really out of the Stone Age, you need to make tools of metal, but I think that’s a bit silly. If you’re working metal at all, you’re beyond Stone Age. Stone Age is rocks, sticks and bone. That’s your working material. True, gold and silver are fairly easy to smelt, but so what? Working metal remains a stupendous cultural advance for any group anywhere, and many never got there. Think the Aborigines. So it’s down to the Incas and the Mayas. The Mayas had great achievements in mathematics, written language and astronomy and built some pretty amazing structures. They also built roads of stone through the rainforest, yet they had no beasts of burden nor wheels to have the animals pull behind them. So why the fancy roads? No one knows. Although they never got the wheel, the Mayas did make children’s toys with wheels on them. One could argue, so why not take the next step and make a wagon? A wagon is not much use without beasts of burden to pull it. Humans don’t really want to pull wagons. That’s donkey, camel, cow, and elephant work. The Incas were the only one to come out of the Stone Age, and they did so long ago. Once again though, they mostly made gaudy stuff and not tools with the metals. In all their achievements, they never figured out how to write down anything about what they were doing, leaving their whole civilization a gigantic question mark. They did not seem to achieve as much in the way of mathematical or astronomical advances as the Maya did. Roll the dice and see what comes up? Heads it’s Mayas. I take the Mayas barely over the Incas. Thoughts?
This is an ensemble of Khakass singers called the Sume-r Ensemble. They sure look like Amerindians, don’t they. The Khakass, Turkic speakers of the Sayan Mountains, are related to Amerindians. The Khakass language is in good shape, with 60,000 speakers. The Khakass belong to the Central Asian Mongoloid group. They have wide faces and cheekbones are not very prominent. They are short, with dark skin, and are able to grow beards.This is a traditional shaman woman of the Altai-Kizhi group of the Altai. Of all of the groups listed above, the Altai are one of the closest of all to the Amerindians. As you can see, this woman looks very Amerindian, all the way down to the face paint. She’s even beating on a drum. I can’t believe that there is something like a tepee in the background.Another powerful connection is that all of these groups practiced Shamanism very prominently. And we know what the aboriginal religions of the Amerindians were – forget all that “Great Creator” crap – most of that was lobbed on recently after they became Christians. The aboriginal religions of the Amerindians were animism and shamanism, combined.Bama Kanda, a famous Buryat. I believe she is a singer. Although the Buryat look a lot more like typical Asians (note the resemblance to a Mongolian or a Korean here) several studies have now related them to the Amerindians. Strangely enough, the Buryats have an oral tradition that says that a group of them went to the Americas long ago.From a book called The Last of the Shor Shamans . He looks quite Amerindian. It showcases a few remaining Shor elders who still practice Shamanism and looks into their worldview. The Shor language is doing ok, but it is on the decline all right. Quite a few kids are still speaking it.The Shor are Uralics, but they have Mongoloid features. They are short, with broad, flat faces. They have light skin and light eyes and can grow a thick beard. The Shors have not done well, and alcoholism and VD are devastating them. Galina Innokentievna Adamova, a member of the Fast Reindeer folksinging group. She looks like an Amerindian, and her costume even looks Amerindian. The Tofalar language is not doing well. It’s not being spoken by kids. About 3
It’s being taught for 1 hour a week in some elementary schools, and the teacher is not even fluent in Tofalar. She conducts the class in Russian. Other villages do not even have schools, and the kids are shipped away to boarding schools. We have to conclude that once a language is no longer spoken in the home and is reduced to a subject in school, it’s probably on its way out.The Tofalar are also members of the Mongoloid Central Asian race. They are short, with high, flat faces, without prominent cheekbones.Nikolay Sergeevich Bakanaev, an expert in Tofalar fairy tales. I can’t believe how much this guy looks like an Amerindian.
The Ket and Selkup are also related to Amerindians, though they are now to the north of the Altai. However, a long time ago, the Ket and Selkup lived in the Altai, and they only moved north later on.
Katun River in the Altai Mountains, origin of the vast majority of the Amerindians. The ancestors of the Amerinds probably left this region to come to the Americas about 16-30,000 years ago.
Another paper has found that there were two waves to the Americas – the first wave, mentioned above, traced back to the Tuva of the Altai, occurred 20-30,000 years ago, not 16,000 years ago as suggested in the paper above. This group moved first to the Chukotka Peninsula, and then into the Americas. They constitute the Amerind speakers of North, Central and South America.
A Tuvan family, ancestors of the vast majority of Amerindians. Tuvans, who live in the Altai Mountains where Russia, China and Mongolia all come together, have one of highest rates of syphilis in the world, attributed to an old shamanistic tradition that encouraged promiscuity among females. The more sex partners a woman had before marriage, the more fertile she would be. It’s obviously not scientifically based.A Selkup woman. Galina Vladimirovna Kusamina (nee Tamelkina), age 47. Photographed at the Farkovo settlement. The Selkups are not doing well. There is high unemployment, an extremely high rate of alcoholism, and they are victims of racial discrimination. The Selkup are members of the Uralic Race. The origins of the Uralics are pretty obscure. Their language is Samoyedic. Samoyedic is very distantly related to Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian.Some say that this race is neither Mongoloid nor Caucasoid. Genetically, they do seem to fall in with the Asians. They are short and have short skulls. Asian traits are diminished, and their skin is fairer than in surrounding groups. These people, along with the Ket, are also ancestors of the Amerindians.
This paper also found evidence for a second wave of Siberians to the Americas. This wave came out of the Lower Amur River region near Sakhalin Island, where Russia, China and Korea all together. This wave gave rise to the Na-Dene speakers and the surrounding populations of Amerinds.
The Lower Amur River region, where the ancestors of the Na-Dene came from. The Amur is said to be one of the world’s 10 great rivers.
The Na-Dene migration occurred about 6-7,000 years ago. Some peoples who live in the Lower Amur region include the Negidal, the Ulchi , the Orok and the Udeghe. This paper found that the Negidal and the Ulchi were the progenitors of the Na-Dene.
Click to enlarge. The Lower Amur region of Russia can be seen to the left of Sakhalin Island. On this map, tribes residing in the Lower Amur region include the Negidal, the Ulchi, the Nivkhi, the Oroch, the Udeghe and the Nanai.D. I. Nadeina, a Negidal elder who has been working with linguists in Vladimirovka village, north of Japan near Sakhalin Island. The Negidal language was devastated by the post-Stalin USSR which sent the kids off to boarding schools.10-3
Kids speak only Russian. There are only 500 of them left. The language is not written and there is no instruction in it. You can see that she looks Japanese, but anthropologically, thees people are called Paleo-Siberians, members of a group called Baikals. These people are the ancestors of the Na-Dene and surrounding tribes of Amerindians.Ulchi children in native dress. They look pretty Japanese to me, but the picture does not have good resolution. The Ulchi are ancestors of the Na-Dene Amerindians.Ulchi women being baptized into Christianity. At first glance I thought that they looked Japanese, but now I am going to say Korean. Anthropologically, they are just said to be Mongoloids of no pure type. Part of them belong to a type called Sakhalin-Amur. These types are short, with a broad, flat face and relatively dark skin. The men may have thick beards.The Ulchi live, like the Negidal, in the Khabarovsk Krai District of Russia along the lower Amur River north of Japan and northeast of Manchuria, west of Sakhalin Island. The capital of the area is Bogorodskove, about 470 miles north of Japan. 30-4
Researching classic genetic markers reveals an interesting story. M130 goes out of Africa, to India and SE Asia (these are the Negritos), then up the coast to North America and the Na-Dene. Originally, M130 is obviously Australoid-Negrito but they go to NE Asian at some point (probably about 9,000 years ago). Theirs must have been a coastal migration. The remains are in Northwest Canada, Oregon and the Northern California coast, but most of them are probably underwater. They must have gone inland at some point to become the Navajo/Apache. This is the same Lower Amur line that went to the Na-Dene in the paper above. We know that the original lines in the Lower Amur region came from SE Asia. This mirrors the theories about the Ainu Jomon culture originating in Thailand 16,000 years ago. This correlation is based on a comparison of skulls from Thailand 16,000 years ago with the Jomonese who showed up in Japan shortly after and with the present day Ainu. All three seem to line up. The tribes of the Lower Amur seem to have a similar provenance to the Ainu.
Ainu men with full beards. As you can see, they do look somewhat Caucasian. However, analysis of their skulls shows that they are Australoid. Their genes are Asian, showing relations to the Andaman Islanders (!) and Tibetans. The Andaman Islanders are the remains of the very first men out of Africa.If the Ainu are related to them, this shows that the Ainu are very ancient indeed.The tribes of the lower Amur region probably derive from the Ainu. Genetics shows that this line came from SE Asia. A good theory is that the Jomon Culture, which showed up in Japan 16,000 years, is derived from a culture that existed in Thailand at the same time. The archaic Thai left Thailand and came up to Japan, possibly by boats. The skulls of the archaic Thai, the Jomonese and the Ainu all line up.So the ancestors of the Ainu lived in Thailand 16,000 years ago and earlier and left to come up to Japan to become the Jomonese. It seems that the Ainu were on the move at this time. The Ainu also seem to be connected to the Murrayans, who arrived in Australia, possibly from either Thailand or Japan between 15-20,000 years ago. There is also evidence that they stopped by the Philippines on their way to Australia from wherever.This is probably the same group as the proto-Australoids, the second group to come to the Philippines. So the Ainu are probably the ancient Thai from 16,000 years ago, the Jomonese from the same time, the Murrayans who arrived in Australia 15-20,000 years ago, the proto-Australoids who came to the Philippines around the same time and the proto-SE Siberians, who probably showed up there around 16,000 years ago.The earliest Amerindians from 9,000-12,5000 years ago also look like Ainu. It seems that from 9,000-16,000 years ago in Asia, the proto-Ainu were really on the move.
Traditional, older anthropology has held that when the Ainu came to Japan, possibly 16,000 years ago, Japan was already inhabited. It is thought that Japan was inhabited by Negrito types prior to 16,000 years ago. The Ainu replaced these Japanese Negritos, probably by killing them off. These people were called by the Ainu the pit-dwellers or koro-pok-guru (men with sunken places). These koro-pok-guru were said to be so small as to be considered dwarfs. The only logical interpretation is that these people were Negritos.
An Ainu man with full beard. The Ainu came to Japan from the Kuril Islands to the north, possibly 16,000 years ago. They were hunter-gatherers and liked to eat meat. They were deerskin leggings and salmon-skin boots. Their religion was animism. They were said to be very dirty people who seldom washed for some reason. A man who lived with them 100 years ago for six weeks said they never bathed in that time and never washed any utensils.They worshiped the bear. Every year they had a Bear Festival and their highest compliment was to compare a man to a bear. The Ainu are pretty unique in this regard, as worship of bears is not common. On the other hand, the Ainu hunted bears, wore their skins and ate their meet. They were said to be a peaceful, kind people and did not practice capital punishment – although someone guilty of murder was mutilated, they were allowed to live.
Along the same lines, another paper found that Amerindians trace back to Mongolia, Manchuria and far southeastern Siberia (the Lower Amur River). The Altai and Buryat populations (just north of Mongolia) were included in the founders. This paper said that Amerindians came 22-29,000 years ago. There are very early sites in Beringia dating back 30,000 years, but they are controversial.
Beringia is now inhabited by Eskimos or Inuit. They are quite close genetically to Asians and they are not really Amerindians. They came quite late. Notice the resemblance to, say, Japanese.
This study found a single 30,000 year old gene in Amerindians. Based on this gene and an earlier study of classic genetic markers that suggested a time of entry at 32,000 years, this study postulated that Amerindians arrived in the Americas 30,000 years ago. The Ona of Argentina are thought to be a remaining example of the Paleoindians whose skulls most resemble Australoids.
The skulls of the extinct tribe the Pericu also show similar affinities, as do very old skulls from the Americas about 12-13,000 years ago such as “Luiza” from Brazil and another from Mexico City. These skulls, and the Fuegians, line up with Melanesians, Negritos, Papuans and the Ainu. Probably around 9,000 years ago there is yet another transition, this time to a more Polynesian type, though affinities with the Ainu remain. The famous Kennewick Man is illustrative of this type. White nationalists love to claim Kennewick man in order to prove that Whites beat Indians to the Americas and therefore this is our land and the Indians are trespassers (I kid you not!). It is true that Kennewick does look somewhat Caucasian, but so do the Ainus. Kennewick man was not White or Caucasian. This paper definitively measures Kennewick Man’s skull and shows his nearest relations. One thing we should point out here is the Kennewick Man is a member of a race that no longer exists. He had 6
Kennewick Man is also somewhat close to Papua New Guinea (Australoids), the Marquesas Islands (Polynesians) and the Society Islands (Polynesians). He has no affinities to Caucasians at all, unless you consider Ainus White, which they are not. It is mysterious why the Ainus appear Caucasoid, but one theory is that when you mix an Australoid with a Mongoloid, you end up with a phenotype that can appear somewhat Caucasoid.
Kem Sokha, a Cambodian politician. If you look at him closely, you can see he looks almost Caucasian. This is probably due to a Mongoloid-Australoid mix, in my opinion.Another photo of Kem Sokha. Forgetting about his eyes for a moment, he looks even more Caucasian in this pic.
The more modern Amerindian types, who resemble Mongoloids and not Australoids, seem to appear about 6-7,000 years ago. This paper indicates that there were possibly many survivors of the Paleo-Indians into more modern times, and that they did not all transition over around 6,000 years ago. They found “Archaic Colombian” skulls until 3,000 years ago that line up with Australoids.
A Yanonami child from the Amazon. This type typically has a very Mongoloid or Asian appearance. They could easily pass for, say, Filipinos.
This is an Inca. This type is distributed up and down the western part of South America from Chile through Peru to Ecuador and Colombia. A different phenotype.
An Apache warrior, Chief Victorio or Apache Wolf. Though these are Na-Dene speakers, this phenotype is common in the West. Prognathism may be present, along with sharply defined, angular features. Can be quite tall.
A Mexican Indian. Short and often has fairly dark skin. This is the phenotype from which many of the Hispanics in the US of Mexican origin are derived.
Floyd Red Crow Westerman, a well-known Sioux Indian from the Plains. This is a typical Plains Indian phenotype. Strangely enough, they can have a Caucasian appearance. Skin can be quite light also. Can be quite large and well-built.
This research takes a lot of time, and I do not get paid anything for it. If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a a contribution to support more of this valuable research.
I never really knew much about this, but a friend of mine was taking a course in Human Geography (WTH?) and this was one of the things that they dealt with in the class. What this really means is that these five areas were the first parts of the world to experience urbanization. Urbanization is very important. You cannot even make cities until you develop surplus agriculture. Moving agriculture from subsistence to surplus usually involves a move to some sort of large farms, orchards or plantations. These large agricultural outposts can then produce enough to not only feed the rural population, but to provide food for the urban population. The urban population must be fed by the rural because as a good rule, people in cities just do not grow food, or, if they do, they do not grow enough to sustain the city. As long as the urban folks don’t need to worry about starving and don’t have to grow food, they can do other stuff besides growing food. This is the beginnings of civilization. The five Hearths are the Nile River Valley in Egypt, Mesopotamia in Iraq, the Indus River Valley in Pakistan, the Mayan in Central America and the Yellow River Valley in China. No one has any idea of what the IQ’s of the dwellers of these regions were at the time, but right now they are Guatemala 79, Egypt 82, Pakistan 82.5, Iraq 87 and China 105 (I don’t accept Richard Lynn’s phony 100 figure for China). All but China are in what is the lower half of the human IQ range. Since White nationalists are adamant that IQ has remained unchanged in all of these places, and everywhere else for that matter, in the past few thousand years, it behooves to ask how is it that these dummies showed up Homo Superiorus in Europe anyway? Of the five, Egypt was far and away the most advanced. The latest thinking is that the pyramids were not built by slaves, but instead were built by relatively well-paid, middle-class workers. Whole cities that housed these workers have been uncovered near the pyramids. Egyptian cities are the oldest of all. I am not sure of dates, but it looks like Egyptian cities go back 6,000 years or more (YBP = years before present). It’s odd that the earliest cities were the best of them all. The majestic pyramids were unsurpassed in the other Hearths. Although Mesopotamia had stone obelisks as tall as a man, Egypt had incredible obelisks of solid stone up to an unbelievable 100 feet tall. People to this day still wonder how the Egyptians did it, and no one quite knows. King Tut appointed what seems to be the first, or one of the first, queens of a large society, so this was a feminist breakthrough too, not that you would know it if you went to Islamic and misogynistic Egypt today. The next one along was Mesopotamia at 5,500 years ago. This is very, very early. They had art, aqueducts and organized religion, but no pyramids or major architectural accomplishments. There was a Great Wall of Babylon, a beautiful structure fashioned of blue bricks. They had obelisks and statues such as the Style of Hammurabi, but that was only as tall as a man. Compare to the 100 foot obelisks of the Egyptians – no contest. The Mesopotamians were already smelting metal – this was the Bronze Age. Smelting metal is a serious advance in civilization, and it’s amazing that anyone was smelting anything 4,900 years ago, when Mesopotamian smelting began. It appears that Mesopotamia was influenced by the earlier civilization of the Egyptians. The next is the great civilization of the Indus. This was in Pakistan, not in India as idiot Indian nationalists claim. Not quite as impressive as the first two, it did have very large cities with aqueducts for irrigation. However, they had no pyramids or other great architecture, no art and no writing. They had big cities and little else. The Indus Civilization vanished without a trace for unknown reasons. The Indus was very old, 4,200 YBP. The fourth Hearth was the Maya Civilization in Central America. This actually goes back a long ways, all the way to 3,100 YBP at least and possibly earlier. It was characterized by a writing system, mathematics, pyramids, art and advanced astronomy. The Mayan pyramids were excellent structures. I am not sure how they compare to the Egyptian pyramids, but it is fascinating that early peoples in two completely different parts of the world both decided to build pyramids (Why?). The Mayans also smelted metal and had a very early irrigation system. What is odd is that neither the Mayans nor the Aztecs who came much later never managed to invent the wheel or to put it to good use. The wheel is absolutely essential for advanced civilization, and discovering it is considered a profound breakthrough for any culture. What is even more strange is that the early Central Americans did invent the wheel, but they did not put it to good use. We have found children’s toys with wheels on them from these cultures. On the other hand, there were no pack animals to be domesticated in Central America, so it’s dubious what use you could put the wheel to, although I guess you could make a rickshaw, a bicycle or a wheelbarrow. The early Central Americans are derided, especially by White Nationalists, for being horribly, even evilly cruel, especially in their mad, seemingly insane addiction to human sacrifice. It’s true that the Central Americans did take human sacrifice to frightfully vicious extremes, at times making it nearly an assembly line operation. However, many early cultures engaged in human sacrifice, including Homo Superiorus over in Europe. Why, we ask? Well, these were pre-scientific folks. They did have their Gods, but as cruel and meaningless as fate often is, the Gods must have been crazy, to paraphrase a movie title. For instance, these nutty and semi-wicked Gods would kill the hottest babe in the village along with the handsomest, smartest guy to boot, for no darn reason at all, while leaving alive the village dirtbag, who barely even deserved to be kept alive one more minute. None of it made sense. Human life is a caprice, so cruel a caprice that it can almost seem like folly or the blackest of jokes. These Gods were clearly nuts, but they ruled our lives nevertheless. What to do? Appease the crazy bastards. This was the meaning of human sacrifice and the more humane later animal sacrifice, taken to insane lengths of folly by the Jews of the Temple Period, where an assembly line of animals stretched for up to a mile or so, and animals were killed all day in a 9-5 operation, such that blood flowed from the Temple like a river. This is the mad period that the most fanatical Zionists wish to recreate. Anyway, the way to appease a powerful, crazy person is to humor him, be nice to him or even bring him gifts. This was the idea behind the human sacrifices, to try to semi-rationalize the ferocious whimsy of the Gods. The fifth Hearth is the Yellow River Valley of China. Actually, yo can’t say that anymore, as the PC-idiots take offense. Guess why? Yellow River sounds like yellow skin. Chinese are said to have yellow skins, but that’s racist and you can’t say that. So forget the Yellow River. Instead, it’s the Huang He River, which I think means yellow in Chinese, but since mostly only Chinese know Chinese, there’s nothing to get offended about, since Chinese equating Chinese = yellow is not offensive, but if Caucasians do it, it’s mean and evil and racist. Whatever. Anyway, the Yellow River civilization was about 2,200 YBP. I don’t know much about it except that they did have large cities and irrigation. They also had writing. One might reasonably ask what these five Hearths had in common.We can say that they were near the Equator, but not too near. That seems crucial. They were all in the Northern Hemisphere, but I doubt if that is meaningful, except that there seem to be more humans and more land mass in the north. And, with the exception of the Mayas, they were all in lush river valleys. The Mayas are odd man out in the jungle. The question of YBP comes up. I don’t mind the term. Originally we had B.C. (Before Christ), and as a Christian, that’s just fine for me. Well, some folks got rid of that a while back and replaced it with BCE, (Before Christian Era), which always struck me as a cheap anti-Christian shot. I figure Jews probably had a hand in this, since Jesus isn’t exactly their favorite guy, nor is Christianity exactly their favorite religion. The atheists and scientist types must have had a hand in it too. It surely so infuriated these poor atheist souls to have to say and write that horrible word “Christ” over and over. Non-Christians all over the world probably nodded in approval or chimed in. YBP seems a good compromise. Neither Christocentric nor a slap in the face of Christianity, it just avoids the whole issue of Jesus and religion altogether and goes by a nice secular calendar. If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site.