Message 1 of 1
,
Jul 28, 1999
Drive down Hiawatha. Take a left on 54th st. (just after the fresh remains
of corporate-state frenzy). Continue a couple blocks till it swings right
and becomes riverview rd., continue a few blocks (along the past sights of
occupied-now razed-houses). You reach a t-road beyond which are trees and
the encampment. take a left on the t-road and you get to a little parking
area. Get out and walk across field to the "star lodge"--a three
story-free state structure and the kitchen, information table and many
friendly people.
This is the sacred Dakota encampment and it needs your attention. The
crisis officially started with an illegal treaty in 1807 forged by an
unauthorized agent named Pike and his 60 kegs of booze. Later on was the
model concentration camp--followed by throwing out the dead women and
children as the Dakota were taken by cramped box cars to other regions of
the U.S. It was a model plan and the colonialization continues.
Yesterday the leaders and elders got arrested. You don't have to get
arrested but spending a few hours in jail, as I did, is worth probably as
much as a whole college course.
Today the cops slammed a woman's head into a car, causing her head to
bleed.
The road is illegal by federal laws protecting sacred sites, not allowing
highways through parks, and because the 1807 treaty (taking 10 miles along
the river) was illegal. Several other lawsuits are pending and being
pursued--but the corporate-state isn't concerned about laws. Also the
recent archaeology study was done by light rail transit connections who
misrepresented the oral testimony, who only dug 12 inches to find (or "not"
find) graves that have already been confirmed by the head of the national
burial ground recovery authority. Their study full of holes has been
analyzed by doctoral students at the U of M and U of WI.
Every person helps. Thanks to those who have come down. Bring a tent and
enjoy the woods!! Bring your voice and a sign for the cars along Hiawatha.
We need mass mobilization and outreach to put a stop to a destruction of
the most important sacred area (for hundreds and hundreds of years) in this
region.
please see http://tcfreenet.org/org/stop55/
Drew Hempel
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/corporations/conversations/topics/479
CALLING FOR RADICAL
DEMOCRACY MN
Drew Hempel, June 1999
We all know something needs changing or a wrestler wouldn�t be governor.
There�s a growing movement (from all groups) which, as the king was
challenged, is now facing up to the dominant power today--the
corporate-state.
MN=DOMINANT CORPORATE-STATE
1) Agribusiness: Cargill, Nash Finch, SuperValu, etc. 2) Finance:
American Express, US Bank, Green Tree, etc. 3) Military: Alliant Tech,
FMC, Lockheed-Martin, etc. 4) Chemical Engineering: 3M, H.B. Fuller, etc.
5) Oil, Energy, Auto: Koch Refinery, SuperAmerica, N.S.P., Ford, etc. 6)
Publishing, Public Relations: West Publishing, Himle Horner, T.C.I., etc.
7) Insurance, Medical Equipment: Medtronic, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, St.
Paul Companies, etc. 8) Sweatshop Sprawl: Target, Mega-Mall retail, etc.
9) Clearcut Monoculture: Blandin, Potlatch, etc. 10) Mechanical
Engineering: Anderson Construction, Toro, Honeywell, Northwest, etc.
Immediate concern is this network of the mega-machine and the evolution of
life on the planet. Military, prison, gambling and, temporary industries
are booming. The Final Empire is out-of-control as corporations continue
to merge and downsize in a sick, legally binding pursuit of profit.
Finance industry electronically transfers trillions of dollars daily in an
empty, speculative investment scenario that feeds off the productive
society. Bigger homogenous artificialities are pursued as the solution�like
more dams and barges on the Mississippi, genetic engineering of wheat, more
microchips, airplanes or, more white flight to the exurbs. From covert
drug-military operations and secret orporate-state rule, the planet is
dying.
MN CORPORATE-STATE DESTRUCTION
Almost 90% of the value of all stocks and mutual funds owned by households
is in the hands of the top 10 percent. (Z Magazine, May, 1999: original
source, Economist Edward Wolff of New York University). H.B.Fuller refuses
to stop producing toxic shoe solvent even though it�s causing brain damage
among tens of thousands of addicted street kids in Latin America. Cargill
receives massive amounts of tax dollars to wipe out small family farms
across the planet and is destroying the world�s largest wetland, located in
Latin America. Alliant Tech is one of the largest weapon manufacturers in
the world. 3M is the 13th largest producer of toxic waste in the U.S.
Potlatch is doubling its paper mill production in MN, threatening the
severely endangered white pine ecosystems. Dayton Hudson continues to rely
on sweatshop products from all over the world. N.S.P. is leading a
consortium that attacks people of color communities with toxic waste. Home
Depot is the largest seller of illegally obtained, endangered old-growth
trees. GAP�s parent co. is destroying 2,000 year old redwoods and relies
on extensive sweatshop labor.
NIXED EXXON: A MODEL FOR CHANGE
Exxon wants to build a huge toxic mine in WI�pursuing a copperbelt that
extends into MN. The people of WI, creating an alliance of small tourism
business, sports-people, Native Americans, environmentalists and labor
activists, directly challenged the corporate-state up to its highest
levels. The transnational interests worry that this unity will spread to
other states. More and more WI and MN grassroots will unite against the
increasing mergers of corporate-state power (i.e. N.S.P.�s powerline to
WI).
MN faces similar corporate threats-whether it�s factory farms or the
Kondirators in the cities. Ever since Fort Snelling was illegally built,
consumer/corporate debt and absentee ownership in housing, food, and
industrial production have put the clamp on community oriented business.
The U of M has consistently been an instrument of federal imperial actions:
With "scientific support;" it made possible Custer�s conquest of the Black
Hills; to being a base for Rockefeller�s"green revolution," and current
genetic franken-foods or its dominant drug-controlled N.C.I. cancer
industry. The corporate-state continues to tax the common worker hugely
disproportionate to the capital gains (finance) parasite.
THE OWNERSHIP SOLUTION
Under capitalism "wealth makes wealth" so the book Shifting Fortunes
highlights the following excellent legislation: KidSave Accounts :
guarantees ever child $1,000 at birth plus $500/year till 5 yrs- to be
invested till retirement. Broadening Employee Ownership through Employee
Stock Ownership Plans (see The Ownership Solution by Jeff Gates).
Individual Development Accounts: contributions matched by public or private
dollars. Withdrawal of funds for large personal development (education,
house, business).
THE DEMOCRATIC UNION SOLUTION
Producer�Consumer Associations, democratic co-ops and union reform--not run
by big business. To quote Humanity & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1: "consumer &
worker coops, employee owned companies, credit unions, community
development loan funds, service credit systems and local barter and service
exchange networks. "Voluntary Public Financing of Elections and
Proportional Representation in Voting. Initiative/Referendum and Recall
are also important tools for radical democracy.
THE CORPORATE CHARTER SOLUTION
Under this solution tax law will be changed: expand earned income credit,
increase personal exemption and no-tax threshold, put a cap on executive
salaries, raise real wages for workers, tax assets and capital gains at a
progressive rate and decrease social security burden off of low income
workers. These tax changes will only arrive when corporate code/charter
law is addressed. The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy exposed
the history of how corporations obtained legal status as persons and now
have more sovereign rights than citizens do, even though the citizens gave
charter status to the state legislature so, unlike the King, corporate
charters would not control the consciences of the people. As was frequent
in the past, charters are still required to be revoked. The assets of a
continuously violating corporation need to be put into receivership under
the sovereignty of democratic rule.
THE LOCAL SELF RELIANCE SOLUTION
Efficiency and control means keeping money circulating back into the
community and not being dependent on external sources for basic needs. As
the MN-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance has shown, MN should follow
sustainable indicators to create more jobs, and save tax dollars. Planned
democratic communities using barter, scrip (local currencies), and local
exchange systems will be a main feature. Community Supported Agriculture,
where communities work directly with farmers in investing up front the
costs of local sustainable food are essential. Renewable energy and
industrial-sustainable farming (using carbohydrates to produce industrial
materials) will be another part of this solution.
THE GLOBAL FAIR TRADE SOLUTION
The corporate-state is now running the world through secret binding
decisions. Heavily tax-subsidized and corporate-protected--"free trade" is
actually products transferred within transnational corporations and the
effect of "free trade" is the least common denominator�forcing communities
to cut support services and break sustainable cycles. These global
corporations are raping the planet and driving the productive healthy
masses to extinction. Fair trade through civil society is the growing
alternative.
THE BIOCENTRIC SOLUTION
To stay resilient, enterprise will have to completely redesign its values,
accounting and production systems. Natural renewable systems can be
restored if human society loses its dependence on synthetic, homogenous,
and noxious artificialities. Sustainable production, industrial ecology,
and indigenous knowledge systems should be top definers of design. See the
Alliance for Sustainability for one example (corporations spend billions in
the US yearly to greenwash and attack workers so nonviolent direct action
will be necessary for change). Taxed will be pollution and bad production,
not people.
MN has a history of the most successful radical democracy third party
movement in the U.S. (see James Youngdale�s "Populism: A psychohistorical
perspective"). Worldwide, solutions are already started (i.e. David
Korten�s books or www.corporations.org/democracy).
RADICAL DEMOCRACY GROUPS IN MN
(The following do not actively use the term radical democracy nor do they
officially endorse the above platform.)
MN Natural Health Coalition, BrotherPeace Twin Cities, Children's Defense
Fund � Minnesota, Common Cause Minnesota, Cooperating Fund Drive, FairVote
Minnesota, Forum of Women in the Environmental Field, Intermedia Arts,
Izaak Walton League, Minnesota Division, Labor Education Service, Listen Up
People: An Alternative Information Collective, Marxist Educational Press,
Midwest Organic Alliance, Minneapolis Center for Neighborhoods, Minnesota
Advocates for Human Rights, Minnesota Farmers Union, Minnesota FoodShare,
Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, Minnesota Project,
Minnesota Renewable Energy Society, MSRRT Newsletter: Library Alternatives
(Minnesota Social Responsibilities Round Table), Minnesotans for an
Energy-Efficient Economy (ME3), National Abortion & Reproductive Rights
Action League (NARAL), Progressive Network, Queer Student Cultural Center,
U of M, Sierra Club North Star Chapter, Stop the Reroute of Highway 55,
Urban Coalition, Yer Out!, Compatible Technology Inc, Community Eco-Design
Network, Prjoect:Human (Art/Movement), Institute on Race and Poverty, Pax
Christi, Global Action Plan (ecoteams), Labor Speakers Club, MN Union
Advocate, People�s Bakery, Amnesty Int�l, KFAI Radio (90.3 FM/106.7 FM in
St. Paul), Summit-University Barter Program, Student�s Co-op, Socialist
Action, Neighborhood Service Exchange, Chemical Injury Resource Assn. Of
MN, ACCESS News, New Union Party, Person to Person, NAACP, Sustainable
Resource Center, MN Env. Advocacy Ctr., Stevens Square Tenants Network, The
City, Inc., Northside Neighbors for Justice, WomenStruggle!, Socliast Labor
Party, Women Against Military Madness, Community Action Against Racism,
University Young Women, Committee In Solidarity with the People of El
Salvador, TC Cuba Network, Socialist Workers Party, World Bank Coalition,
Project in Pride in Living, Black Panther Party, Progressive Student Org.,
Graduate Student Org. Com., MN Green Party, Marcus Garvey Center, Asian
Sisters In Action, Mississippi River Revival, MN New Party/Progressive MN,
ACORN, Anti-Racist Action, MN Alliance for Progressive Action, La Raza,
East Timor Action Network, Puerto Rican Solidarity Coalition, Gray
Panthers, Big Mountain-Dineh Defense Alliance, TC Refuse and Resist,
Grassroots Party, Citizens for a Better Environment, Earth Protector, Earth
First!, COACT, Food Not Bombs!, Military Budget Coalition, MN Coalition to
Ban Landmines, MN Institute for Social Transformation, Alliant Action, MN
for a United Ireland, Up and Out of Poverty, Industrial Workers of the
World, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination, MN Communist Party, MN
Progressive Community, Friends for a Non-Violent World, MN Alliance of
Peace Makers, Guatemalan Solidarity Network, Nicaraguan Solidarity Network,
Resource Center of the Americas, Native American Rainbow Network, Social
Security Project of MN, Fair Trade Coalition, Critical Mass, MN Land Trust,
Cop-Watch, First Call For Help, MN Coalition of Bicyclists, District 202,
Neighborhood Energy Consortium, Friends of the North Shore, Habitat for
Humanity, MN Human Rights Center, MN Center for Public Health, Women of
Nations, Neighborhood Transportation Network, Community Barter Network,
Superior Wilderness Action Network, Northstar Sierra Club, Veterans for
Peace, Free Nigeria Movement, MN Free Burma Coalition, TC Coalition to Free
Mumia Abu Jamal, MN Public Interest Research Group, Farmworker Action
Network, Pride w/o Borders, Women�s International League for Peace and
Freedom, MN Land Stewardship Project, Prairie Island Coalition Against
Nuclear Storage, St. Thomas Student Coalition for Social Justice, Welfare
Rights Coalition, St. Martin�s Table, Meridel LeSeur Peace Center, Alliance
for Sustainability, Citizen Action, the Alliance Project, Affordable
Housing Now, Second Harvest Food, Women�s Prison Book Project, The Final
Chapter, Student AIDS Groups, MN Military Tax Resisters Network, Older
Lesbians Org. for Change, People For Justice, Sexual Violence Center, the
Institute for Local Self Reliance, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, Women�s Resource Cancer Center, University Coalition for Choice,
Mpls. Election Reform Coalition, Down River Alliance, Indigenous
Environmental Network, Women Indigenous Network, White Earth Land Recovery
Project, American Indian Movement, InterSur Center, Arise Books!
Collective, May Day Books, Northland Poster Collective, Northern Sun
Alliance, Green Institute, Uhuru Books, Headwaters Foundation, Cloudforest
Initiatives, Fronte Del Norte, MN Food Association, Clean Water Action
Alliance, Student Org. for Animal Rights, Animal Liberation League,
Brothers Touch, Legal Rights Ctr., Centro Legal, Urban Coalition, Crazy
Horse Defense Project, MN Women�s Somalia Association, Students for a Free
Tibet, Raices Indigenes, Amazon books, Extreme Noise, Alliance for Metro
Stability, IPEAC (church social justice), Bedlam theater, Alliance of the
Streets, MN Tenants Union, Pure Food Campaign, Friends of the Mississippi
River, Loaves and Fishes (Catholic Workers), N.E. MN Forest Group, Second
Harvest Food Distribution, North Country Co-op, Student Peace Action
Network, Ad Hoc Faculty Com. for Peace and Justice, various progressive
sectors in AFL-CIO affiliate unions, Good Life Caf�, Seward Caf�, Hard
Times Caf�, Animal Rights Coalition, Casa De Esperanza, Minnehaha Free
State, Mac. Peace & Justice Coalition. hemp0027@... for info.
Hempel is a graduate student.
Below you'll find analytic sources for the U.S. elite construction of the
whole crisis in Yugoslavia, putting to rest any propaganda about
humanitarian concerns. Drew Hempel
From: "Ivo Skoric" <ivo@...>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 00:17:34 +0000
To: Drew W Hempel <hemp0027@...>
Subject: Re: On Yugoslavia
This is correct. You can find that what I wrote at
http://balkansnet.org/yugoslavery.html - the bulk of it is based on a
Congressional report, and the rest of it on data collected from
various U.S. and Yugoslav sources. I didn't find anything on
drug-trafficking in connection with Milosevic, though. Everything
else is correct. Due to the specific geo-political position Tito's
Yugoslavia could import military technology from both blocs,
combining the best and creating easy to use military systems for
developing countries, just out of colonialism, eager to assert its
power.... American government not only did not try to prevent such
proliferation, it sold certain technologies to Yugoslavia with prior
knowledge where Yugoslavia will resell it - this is the way how for
years the US military-industrial complex could legally sell its
products to places which would not be approved by Congress. Kissinger
and Eagleburger (working for Kissinger associates) advised Milosevic
on several occassions. Kissinger always gave just ORAL advice
for which he asked up to $400,000 (nothing can be traced except
money), but yeah things did happen once he gave the advice, as you
correctly noted: Indonesia attacked East Timor the day after he left
- which means that he told them that the West is going to make a lot
of fuss but actually do nothing about it.
ivo
----------
> From: Drew W Hempel <hemp0027@...>could
> To: zoran.ostric@...; post-grns-usa-forum@...
> Subject: Re: THE BALKANS: LIES VS. FACTS
> Date: 1999. travanj 19 22:57
>
> Since you all seem well-versed on this pending world war maybe light
> be shed on the role of the world bank on Yugoslavia. Also I've read fromKissinger
> not the particularly best sources that Milosevic was a client of
> Associates, working with many U.S. top planners, doing covert financingfor
> weapon and drug dealing. Wouldn't be too surprising since Kissinger leftU.S.
> Indonesia the day before they attacked East Timor, he supported Pinochet,
> and extended the bombing of Cambodia, etc. etc. Also I read that the
> and Britain sold weapons to Milosevic during the Bosnia war. Couldsomeone
> please correct me on these crucially important yet, as usual, suprisinglyIvica Skoric, ivo@..., is a friend of mine, an anarchist, a
> ignored details? Thanks, Drew Hempel
Croat
born in Germany, have been living in New York from 1990. He write his
articles
about Kosovo and ex-Yu daily, you can find them on the list
ZAMIR-CHAT-L@....
I remember that he wrote about those connections long ago, in 1991.
Mir i dobro,
Zoran O.
**************************************************************
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
YEAH! They're full of passion, and intensity...
(George R.R. Martin: "Armageddon Rag")
From: Drew W Hempel <hemp0027@...>
To: ivo@...
Subject: On Yugoslavia
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 20:36:12 -0500
Dear Ivica Skoric: I hope I am reaching you at the correct address. Could
you please send me info. regarding the below? Thanks, Drew Hempel
From: "Zoran Ostric" <zoran.ostric@...>
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 13:17:17 +0200
To: "Drew W Hempel" <hemp0027@...>,
<post-grns-usa-forum@...>
Subject: Re: THE BALKANS: LIES VS. FACTS
We will be meeting with the U of MN school paper, the Daily, to launch the
following campaign.
Fellow activists, I'm looking for other individuals and organizations to
take ownership of the below, to offer criticism and to actively engage in
its outcome. Please endorse the following declarations with your own
stipulations. Drew Hempel
Free State University
As University students we are the only group to provide a structural,
radical and, sustainable analysis of the University.
Free State University is a local of the Democracy Alliance, a continental
movement to regain decision-making from authoritarian, greed-driven,
destructive corporate power.
Goal: Retake sovereignty of our democratic rights as free-thinking
citizens.
Strategy: Target the domination of corporate power at the University
focusing on four central areas:
1) Access 2) Socially responsible investment and procurement 3)
Democratic process in society 4) Campus research
Tactics: A: Education
1) Expose the corporate origins of the attack on student-controlled
student monies (the student fees struggle) and corporate-funded attacks on
diversity.
2) Expose the corporate origins of high tuition rates as
profit-driven, corporate-controlled capital intensive reserach that steals
money and dominates the direction of the university (see Dr. Lawrence
Soley's "Leasing The Ivory Tower: The Corporate Takerover of Academia" as
well as Free State University research).
3) Expose the single largest source of funding at the U: 25,000
research and contract grants, as well as donations. Although predominantly
of federal origin, the contracts and grants are tax-deductible corporate
donations at least 20 percent of the time. Federal funding is also often
corporate-controlled through the well-documented "revolving door" problem.
Many of these secretive projects are destructive, profit-biased and gag the
democratic rights of researchers and society (i.e. pro-tobacco, pro-factory
fam, pro-biological pollution, pro-war).
B. Transformation
1) Organize to create a University "Corporate Investigations
Committee" that analyzes and recommends actions on corporate conflict of
intersts at the University (based on the Social Concerns Committee or the
recently created "Investments Committee")
2) Organize regionally to revoke the corporate charters of
continuously violating corporations. The Attorney General retains the
right to revoke the charter. Once the charter is revoked, assets will be
rearranged and a sustainable direction for the corporation will be created.
(This practice called "Quo Warranto" was common fare in the U.S.)
3) Organize to regain public sovereignty over the state constitution
by reasserting the basic rights of persons and reasserting that
corporations do not maintain the rights of individual persons.
Corporations are institutions given the privilege to exist by the state
legislature. (The legal effects of personhood are far-reaching).
4) Organize to continually overcome the disinformation and
corporate-focus of the corporate media.
5) Organize to create sustainable spaces that recognize and work in
solidarity with the sovereign, democratic rights of the original and
sustainable societies of the continent and the planet (i.e. "the Free
States").
For more information contact Drew Hempel: 362-9810 or hemp0027.tc.umn.edu
Natural Law -- How to Achieve Radical Freedom/Peace/Justice
Jroc , a prominent Minnesota justice-theatre-worker, just completed a
one day qigong (taoist yoga) class taught by Chinese professor/qigong
master Chunyi Lin, available through Anoka Ramsey Community College.
During the next two days after the class Jason already achieved spectacular
results. As he states:
"it was amazing. i healed a woman with cronic pain. then, just a few
minutes ago, i healed my friend who has had this barfy-constrictive feeling
in his throat since august. he has seen every kind of specialist in the
city. i just clawed the energy out as merky smoke and it was gone."
Western culture relies on materialistic reality for power. Jason became a
conduit for immaterial reciprocal or harmonic forces. This is often called
"Natural Law" and, although not recognized yet by most activists, it has
become a significant part of progressive radical politics in the U.S.
Winona LaDuke regularly uses the term "Natural Law" as the foundation for
her activism. The Natural Law Party was supporting the Nader/LaDuke ticket
as the final days of the election drew near (this is not an endorsement of
the Party per se).
Natural Law is not just some additional tool to activism. Natural Law is a
radically different manner of structuring reality and shaping power than
has been done in the West since its inception in 400 B.C. As will be
explained in referenced detail, Natural Law has immediate radical solutions
to huge structural issues like nuclear waste and genetic engineering.
Natural Law also completely transforms the dynamics of social organization
for justice/freedom/peace.
Most progressives are understandable leery of the term "natural law"
especially since in the West it has normally been the basis for policies
that promote fascism. The supernatural-oriented Thule Society was a main
foundation for the Nazis (The Occult Conspiracy by Michael Howard; New
York: MJF Books, 1997, 1989). The Nazis were "environmentalists" and often
in the West the goal of "natural harmony," "population control," and
"hygiene" have been euphemisms for nihilistic policies.
The rightfully concerned german author Jozef Keulartz in his recent
book "The Struggle for Nature: A critique of radical ecology" (London:
Routeldge, 1998) traces these oppressive trends to the (mis)use of "Natural
Law" in the West -- the "divine logos" of the Stoics.
Indeed radical environmentalists need to seriously examine the label of
"eco-fascism" even though it is a term more appropriately applied to the
genetic engineering-mass destruction-information control complex that has
become the "corporate culture" in which westernized people are now
submerged.
Fortunately the "Natural Law" that Winona LaDuke refers to and the
"Natural Law" that the Natural Law Party is also attempting to practice,
have been traced to the original western source by the Oxford scholar Peter
Kingsley in his book "Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles
and Pythagorean Tradition" (Oxford University Press, 1995).
Kingsley documents that the Stoics, just like Plato and Aristotle,
misinterpreted the Pythagorean culture that was rooted in non-Western
traditions. The destruction of Pythagorean culture and its replacement of
with elite materialism is the defining birth of the West.
Whereas Westerners rely on their immediate senses to "control" their
environment, non-Westerners rely on a more sophisticated understanding that
is based in higher and comprehensive levels of direct, free energy.
Westerners (including activists) often (mis)use their materialistic senses
as the limit of their defining agenda for social organzation and this leads
to a materialistic "power over" or self-defeating mechanistic approach to
reality.
The divine logos or Natural Law of the Stoics was rooted in a detatched
reliance on the limits of thought whereas the Natural Law of Pythagoras was
based on a direct understanding of higher forms of energy from which
thought is derived. Unlike the irrational genocidal fanaticism of the
Nazis, the Crusaders, and the corporate-state military elite of the U.S.,
with nonwestern realities, the mind and logical thought are naturally and
dialectically extended into a wider and deeper spectrum of more powerful
energy-forms.
After studying in Egypt for twenty-one years as well as in the near East,
Pythagoras used music theory to demonstrate that relying on universal
energy or Natural Law is actually more logical -- this is actually
information-energy together or direct knowledge. Natural Law is a means to
transcend the paradoxes of linear, dualistic language prone to
misunderstanding and destruction. Taoist yoga (qigong), Vedic yoga and
other esoteric meditation practices have studied Natural Law to such an
extent that its description of universal energy is being legitimated as a
scientific system in a comparison with western studies. (For comprehensive
analysis see "Epicenters of Justice: Music theory, sound-current nondualism
and radical ecology" http://lightmind.com/library/hempel/epicenters.html)
Universal energy or Natural Law has been documented to be the foundation
for social organization in over forty-nine cultures around the world. One
recent scholarly example is anthropologist Hiroyau Tomoeda's, "The Concept
of Vital Energy among Andean Pastoralists," in Roy Ellen and Katsuyoshi
Fukui, eds., Redefining Nature: Ecology, culture and domestication (Oxford:
Berg, 1996).
Westerners sometimes tap into these higher powers but without any true
understanding of how they interact whereas nonwesterners have often
continued to maintain the wisdom energy necessary for social and
environmental justice.
Music again provides an outstanding example since it acts as a direct
experiental model that bridges these different material and nonmaterial
realms of power.
To go back to Winona LaDuke's use of Natural Law: It is documented in the
book "Music of the Chippewa" that Anishinabe shamans use sound as a means
of resonating energy for healing. Certain songs were considered so
powerful that they were kept secret unless the healing situation arose.
Then, as is done in Taoist Yoga, the shaman would hold the hands over the
sick body and, with the aid of sound, channel the healing, self-organizing
or harmonic energy into the other person.
While westerners rely on logical thought as the highest means of social
organization, western music composers have bridged logical structures with
a conscious approach of accessing higher energy. The book "Talks with
Great Composers" documents how leading western composers experience direct
knowledge of their complete music structures while in a meditative state
and experiencing higher levels of vibration.
In contrast to a materialistic western (mis)understanding, in Taoist Yoga
the conception of a human is understood to be a combination of the energy
of the parents, energy of the universe, and energy of the earth. After the
umbilical cord is cut the Original or Pre-Natal Energy, slowly seperates to
the kidney-reproductive organs and to the brain. This Pre-Natal energy can
be revitalized through mental concentration, breath, posture, correct
nutrition and correct action. The energy of the universe, the energy of
other humans/animals and the earth's energy continue to be a strong
influence on that person. If the person practices correctly with focused
attention, they will become a conduit and resonator of those energies --
enabling profound power and wisdom to be cultivated. Traditional Chinese
culture defined the organization of society based on the combinations and
results of these energy influences and because of Marxist scientific
materialism, qigong has been verified by over 800 scientific studies in
China.
The Kogis, the only intact and continuous pre-Colombian culture in the
western hemisphere, continue to practice the same Natural Law in a
comprehensive, powerful manner. The round-towers and megaliths of the
ancient Celts reveal the same Natural Law practices that organize social
ceremonies, farming and technology. (Philip S. Callahan, Paramagnetism:
Rediscovering nature's secret force of growth; Metairie, LA: Acres, USA,
1995). Yoruba of West Africa is another example of a Natural Law system
that even utilizes a tool very similar to the I Ching of China.
Western science, although still based on destructive materialism, is
beginning to accept the justice of Natural Law for societal healing. Dr.
Vandana Shiva, who supplements her western research with the wisdom of
Vedic yoga, uses radical ecology systems theory to redirect traditional
systems of western social control (below is an extended excerpt):
"Self-healing and repair is another characteristic of living systems that
derives from complexity and self-organization...External control reduces
the degrees of freedom a system has, thereby reducing its capacity to
organize and renew itself...A system is autopoietic when its function is
primarily geared toward self-renewal. An autopoietic system refers to
itself [sovereignty].
"In contrast, an allopoietic system, such as a machine, refers to a
function given from outside, such as the production of a specific
output...Self-organizing systems form from within, shaping themselves
outwards. Externally organized mechanical systems do not grow; they are
made, put together from the outside....Self-organization is the essence of
health and ecological stability for living systems....Ecological problems
arise from applying the engineering paradigm to life. This paradigm is
being deepened through genetic engineering, which will have major
ecological and ethical implications [i.e. extinction]...life is seen as
having instrumental rather than intrinsic value. Thus, there is a
self-directed capacity for restoration. The faculty of repair is, in turn,
related to resilience. When organisms are treated as machines, and
manipulated without recognition of the ability to self-organize, their
capacity to heal and repair breaks down, and they need increasing inputs
and controls to be maintained. (Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: the Plunder of
Nature and Knowledge (Boston: South End Press, 1997)
The self-organizing principles that Dr. Vandana Shiva describes can also be
explained by the principles of resonance of energy. Physicist Fritz Alfred
Popp of the Radiology Center of Philips University, Germany, has recently
discovered the universal harmonic energy system (Natural Law) that is the
foundation for DNA and that activates the codons. For a review of
self-transformation of energy or resonance research used to make nuclear
waste non-radioactive, see Robert A. Nelson, "Transmutations of Nuclear
Waste" in Nexus: New Times Magazine, Feb.-March, 2000: 47. In China
several scientific studies have been conducted to show that nature grows
better when it is supplied by the Natural Law energy of human conductors or
qigong practicioners. The natural energy meridans of trees have been
discovered for example.
In fact western science has discovered that the universe operates as a
morpho-resonating "holograph" that transcends limits of time and space (see
"Epicenters of Justice" for full details). Again based on the principles
that Vandana Shiva describes, by using Natural Law, the deeper a person
goes to the root of their own energy (universal energy), the greater the
power of self-organization that the person manifests on the environment and
society as a whole. This was the truth practiced by Ghandi when he based
all his activism on yogic meditation. The same is the case for Aung San
Suu Kyi and the Buddhist monks in Burma. There the Natural Law wisdom
energy of Buddhism calls for non-violence even in the face of the worst
military regime in the world.
Through Natural Law the usual desires and senses of materialism are
examined to be illusions rooted in higher more powerful and profound
energy-forms.
Natural Law was practiced even more so by the great revolutionaries Sri
Aurobindo and Poonjaji who both were early underground leaders in the
independence struggle of India. Unlike Ghandi, who was often excluded from
the political process because of his insistance on Natural Law, both of
these highly esteemed leaders, after making bombs, etc., left "activism"
all together in order to access higher levels of power from which political
struggles are rooted. The same can be said today of the Kogi elders who
are in the Andes literally taking care of the world through universal
energy practices. The highest level Taoist Yoga masters are kept secret in
China and the most powerful known qigong master of China, Master Yan Xin,
openly speaks of a global energy or qigong revolution that will transform
western reality. The Dalai Lama, with a very sophisticated knowledge of
practical politics, also calls for a "spiritual revolution."
This is the philosophy of the Natural Law party that encourages what is
commonly called "the Maharishi Effect." It is an especially hard one to
accept for materialistic westerners especially when "spirituality" is
fraught with frauds and power struggles just as much as "politics" is.
For those who want to take the leap of letting go to materialistic
power-over forms of knowledge they can, like Jroc, take advantage of
the very powerful Taoist Yoga master Chunyi Lin who fortunately has chosen
to live in Minnesota.
Oct 22, 2000
John Zerzan, the published radical environmentalist targeted by the
corporate media as the so-called propagandist behind the black bloc of
Seattle, is coming to town! Thanks to fellow radicals for organizing the
event (see below for time/location).
Zerzan's promotional creation of anarcho-primitivism (or other similar
labels) is worth supporting as at least a revamped version of the roots of
Earth First! More importantly though, what is dramatically dimissed by
Zerzan stands out as a brilliant expose of the severe intellectual atrophy
of the U.S. activist community. Not too surprising to find such obvious
limits of thought by Zerzan, someone known for supposed rabid reading,
since the U.S. is the belly of the beast, the heart of "brainwashing under
freedom."
The following outstanding five essential factors are recommended to be
applied to/by Zerzan as a means of being pursuant to our mutual goals of
FREEDOM.
1) You Don't Know What Anarchism Is Until You Read and Discuss the
Following Two Books!!
To develop his theory Zerzan critiques traditional anarchism as to be
expected. Unfortunately unbeknownst to the masses there is no discussion
in the U.S. of the two fundamental expositions of anarchism: namely
"Anarcho-Syndicalism" by the British anarchist of the 1930s, Rudolf Rocker
and "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice" by the French anarchist Daniel
Guerin of the 1960s. Not only have these two books not been made available
at Arise and Mayday, the two local radical bookshops, but the grassroots
anarchist community in the U.S. is totally clueless about both these books
by Rocker and Guerin!!!! See below for full title/publisher, etc.
It is very safe to say that unless a person reads these two books they will
only have a piecemeal understanding of what anarchism actually is, much
less the potential of any anarchism. These two books stand out by far as
the most clear and comprehensive works about the nuts and bolts of real
anarchism to date. Rocker's work is the classic overview of anarchism in
practice at the height of its power yet this primary text is again
essentially completely ignored and totally unknown by the U.S. activist
community. The same goes for Guerin's work. Both were well-known totally
committed anarchist radicals and theorists and yet again they are both
completely ignored in the U.S. Granted their limitations should be learned
from but to do that they need to be acknowledged and discussed!!
2) The development of Zerzan's theory relies on his dismissal of Noam
Chomsky. Again unfortunately Zerzan hasn't done a comprehensive critique
of Chomsky nor have any other "eager beaver" ideologues attempting to
propagandize themself to "the top" of the movement.
Not suprisingly Chomsky recommends the best books on anarchism to date are
the two works of Rocker and Guerin mentioned above so if anyone is going to
critique Chomsky they should again probably discuss those two books (see
No. 1 above). Chomsky writes the forward to both Rocker and Guerins'
overview of anarchism and, to repeat, even the so-called anarchist
community knows nothing about the two books by Rocker and Guerin! Again
this shows, as Chomsky proves again and again, that even the activist
community is continually subjected to "brainwashing under freedom" or
information control or indoctrination. For all the name throwing around of
"Chomsky" people in the U.S. simply haven't read his work extensively.
See Rudolf Rocker, preface by Noam Chomsky, Anarcho-Syndicalism (London:
Pluto Press, 1989) and Daniel Gu�rin, introduction by Noam Chomsky,
Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (NY: first published Monthly Review
Press, 1970, should be still in print).
The depth, and importance of Chomsky's thought remains untapped in the U.S.
Zerzan, for example, likes to dismiss Chomsky as being pro-technology. If
such is the case then why did Chomsky, way ahead of his time, highlight the
following trend in the early 70s:
"Students are also reacting against the values of industrial society.... In
fact, there may be very serious questioning, in coming years, of the basic
assumption of modern society that development of technology is inherently a
desirable, inevitable process." Noam Chomsky, For Reasons of State (New
York, Pantheon Books, 1973), p. 310.
Also the passage of Rousseau that Chomsky has refered to regularly for
decades as his example of freedom emphasizes a Zerzanian "against
civilization" perspective:
"... when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European
voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword and death to preserve
only their independence,..." Milan Rai, Chomsky's Politics (NY: Verso,
1995), p. 161.
3) Zerzan's Anarcho-primitivism draws from anthropological evidence to
support the advantages of hunter-gatherer societies. Unfortunately Zerzan
limits his promotion to a strictly materialist interpretation of
hunter-gatherer cultures which stands in complete contradiction to the
anthropological evidence.
Hunter-gatherer cultures are based on a "oneness with nature" state of
consciousness that would be labeled as spirtuality or dismissed by Zerzan
as new age hogwash. (see Morris Berman, Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic
Spirituality, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000 for indepth scholarly overview).
To dismiss this level of reality is not only an attack against
hunter-gatherer cultures but it is a continuation of "power over"
materialism that is the foundation of all the "isms" of western society.
In otherwords Zerzan is not radical enough since he refuses to recognize
the shamanistic culture that was hegemonic before the creation of the West
-- i.e. the Pythagorean culture of 500 B.C. See for example J. Donald
Hughes, "The Environmental Ethics of the Pythagoreans," Environmental
Ethics 3 (1980): 195-213.
4) Probably the closest Zerzan gets to recognizing the importance of this
underlying consciousness that is the foundation for nature based societies
is when Zerzan acknowledges the importance of music. Zerzan states,
"...music, with its apparent indifference to external reality, has been
developing an ideological power of expression hitherto unknown." John
Zerzan, TONALITY and TOTALITY (NY: Autonomedia, 1994)
Again unfortunately Zerzan simple apes the materialist and inaccurate
analysis of music that has been standard of the old left since the turn of
the century. Music in actually is a model of not only psychological energy
that deconstructs ideology but also higher and more powerful levels of
energy that are basis for all material reality. For an analysis of music
that comes close to a correct interpretation see the work of radical
theorist Slavoj Zizek, the last chapter of The Plague of Fantasies. New
York: Verso, 1997
5) Anarchism is best known by THE BLACK FLAG. As Zizek points out in his
important critiques of all ideology, the black flag represents emptiness,
nothingness, no ideological signifier, pure enthusiasm of radical natural
living. Here again, as an ideologue, Zerzan fails and even Chomsky and
Zizek show their limits as well.
To understand the true essence of the Black Flag is to go to the roots of
Greek culture, the origin of the word anarchism. All original Greek
concepts of social formation: sovereignty, democracy and anarchism are
literally based out of energy -- or literally the "political number."
Ernest McClain, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (York
Beach, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, Inc., 1978).
A recent scholarly work on "Radical Democracy" captures the true meaning of
THE BLACK FLAG in the context of an energy foundation that Zerzan refuses
to recognize.
Addressing the problem of democracy simply becoming a new Orwellian slogan
for top-down repression, radical democracy becomes dialectically grounded
in "groundlessness" and the constant creativity of self-critique and even
"the questioning of questioning itself" (the absolute void). This
foundational process creates a "radically pluralist," "common-sensical
balance" in reality but the "conflict is eternal." (1: see below for ref.
info).
Even though the work of Laclau and Mouffe has been highly regarded (see
Zizek for example) Horowitz points out that it has been criticized because
the groundlessness or "negativity" of the absolute void still relies on the
discourse of positivity, on ideological language ("the common-sensical
balance"). As other scholars have pointed out, while radical democracy
makes significant steps it still fails by "opposition equivalence," but
Horowitz, by turning to Asian philosophy and giving an indepth description
of nondualism, provides the correct recourse:
The body of nature has its own coherence, not prior to or apart from
discourse, and not simply as physiochemical process, but as a field of
lived meanings that are not derived solely from linguistic forms
[sound-current nondualism -- see below]: Various discourses can draw the
line between flowers and weeds in many different places; this drawing of
the line in itself is empty [the nodes]; nevertheless as empty [the
absolute void], it is drawn in all discourses [the waves of universal
energy]. Moreover, it can be said to be drawn correctly by some and
incorrectly by others. [the multidimensional harmonic waves emanating from
the absolute void] The tomato has been mistakenly classified as a poisonous
berry. (2: see below for ref. info)
1 Gad Horowitz, "Groundless Democracy," in Phillippa Berry and Andrew
Wernick, eds., Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion (NY: Routledge,
1992), p. 157, citing Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe; translated by Winston
Moore and Paul Cammack, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a radical
democratic politics (London: Verso, 1985).
2 Ibid, p. 161.
For an indepth overview that moves "the movement" beyond the constantly
repeating unradical limits of the materialist "power-over" West see
"Epicenters of Justice: Music theory, sound-current nondualism and radical
ecology" at
http://lightmind.com/library/hempel/restoring-logos2.html#346
A MESSAGE ON THE FUTURE OF THE MOVEMENT
What do the National Labor Relations Board, the US Forest Service, the
Federal Drug Administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission and the
Environmental Protection Agency all have in common?
In my day I have been vice-president of a union local. I have been an Earth
Firster! I have been a field canvasser, an organizer for the UW-Madison
Greens, a co-founder of the MN Free Burma Coalition. I have been an
anti-sweatshop activist, a farmer, a housing cooperative worker, a factory
worker, a secretary, a researcher and writer, etc.
None of us are going anywhere unless we have legal sovereignty. We are not
legally free people.
The Free Burma Resolution taken directly from the anti-apartheid Free South
Africa resolution was vetoed by a "liberal" African-American woman, the
Mayor of Minneapolis.
The Treasurer of the University of Minnesota, an African-American woman,
recently filed a civil rights race discrimination case against the school
and her main argument is violation of the charter of the University.
One person recognizes sovereignty, recognizes that the University of
Minnesota is a chartered corporation and if it continuously violates the
public good than that charter must be revoked.
The other person has blatantly dismissed human rights based on the argument
that deciding to not spend taxes on corporations collaborating with a
slave-based regime supersedes the role of the federal government.
According to the second view the local nature of the Free Burma Resolution
is a violation of the Interstate Commerce Commission which is a regulatory
body of the executive branch. It is also argued that if we respect
national sovereignty then we, at the city or country or state level, can
not enact foreign policy on behalf of the federal government.
What is completely hidden from this argument is individual sovereignty.
The Interstate Commerce Commission was the first regulatory body created
after corporations were granted the rights of personhood and were
protected with sovereignty under the constitution.
Corporations are chartered at the state legislature and the decision to do
so was a blatant 180 turn from the previous origin of corporations -- the
sovereign King.
Arguing that national sovereignty is being threatened when the power of
corporations has been transfered from the elected state legislatures and
state constitutions to the executive branch of the corporate-regulatory
regime is a defense of the King in essence.
Whenever a citizen must defer to the regulatory executive branch in an
appeal for justice and diversity (the INS, the EPA, the NLRB, the FLA, the
USFS) then that citizen has already given up their sovereignty and they
have fundamentally lost their basic human rights.
Although some activists are focused on passing resolutions against
corporate personhood, filing legal petitions to revoke corporate charters,
and lobbying for constitutional amendments that declare corporations are
not persons, until we as a movement define sovereignty as our fundamental
basis for action we will be lost.
Is the American Revolution known as a movement asking the King (i.e. the
executive branch and sovereign corporate rulers) to treat us better?
Currently corporations are using personhood to stop not only campaign
finance reform but every, literally, every campaign for the public good.
Corporations currently have the legal right to declare all the campaigns
for the public good as violations of their rights to due process and the
rights to freedom of speech.
When I, with about a dozen others, personally challenged Gore in a "secret"
meeting about the corporate genocide of the U'WA his defense was that "the
overseer of his family trust fund is legally responsible not to transfer
the funds"!!! Under corporate sovereignty that person is legally held to
maximize profits.
Immediately after personhood was legally designated to corporations by a
corrupt robberbaron judge, in that same year, 230 state laws controlling
corporations were overturned in District Courts. These laws limited the
amount of time a corporation could exist. They made shareholders directly
responsible for corporate violations versus today's limited liability.
They designated the particular reasons why corporations could exist and did
not allow corporations to own other corporations or to make political
contributions. The finances of corporations were open to the public.
Between 1890 and 1910 307 cases were brought to the Supreme Court on the
basis of the fourteenth amendment to free African-American Slaves. But
only nineteen of those cases were on the behalf of African-Americans, the
other two hundred eighty eight were corporations seeking their new right to
due-process granted to them under personhood.
The Free Burma Resolution is now being considered by the US Supreme Court
and their decision to not allow citizens to pass resolutions deciding how
their tax dollars are spent vis a vis the behavior of corporations is a
direct conclusion of the 1886 judicial decision of corporation personhood.
Until activists forget about pleading to the regulatory bodies of the
executive branch, until activists demand sovereignty and the legal right to
control the chartered entities created by their representatives, then we
can not achieve any lasting justice and diversity.
See the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (www.poclard.org)
ON CARGILL:
>
> Cargill, controlled by the MacMillan family, and often noted as the
world's
What do the National Labor Relations Board, the US Forest Service, the
Federal Drug Administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission and the
Environmental Protection Agency all have in common?
In my day I have been vice-president of a union local. I have been an Earth
Firster! I have been a field canvasser, an organizer for the UW-Madison
Greens, a co-founder of the MN Free Burma Coalition. I have been an
anti-sweatshop activist, a farmer, a housing cooperative worker, a factory
worker, a secretary, a researcher and writer, etc.
None of us are going anywhere unless we have legal sovereignty. We are not
legally free people.
The Free Burma Resolution taken directly from the anti-apartheid Free South
Africa resolution was vetoed by a "liberal" African-American woman, the
Mayor of Minneapolis.
The Treasurer of the University of Minnesota, an African-American woman,
recently filed a civil rights race discrimination case against the school
and her main argument is violation of the charter of the University.
One person recognizes sovereignty, recognizes that the University of
Minnesota is a chartered corporation and if it continuously violates the
public good than that charter must be revoked.
The other person has blatantly dismissed human rights based on the argument
that deciding to not spend taxes on corporations collaborating with a
slave-based regime supersedes the role of the federal government.
According to the second view the local nature of the Free Burma Resolution
is a violation of the Interstate Commerce Commission which is a regulatory
body of the executive branch. It is also argued that if we respect
national sovereignty then we, at the city or country or state level, can
not enact foreign policy on behalf of the federal government.
What is completely hidden from this argument is individual sovereignty.
The Interstate Commerce Commission was the first regulatory body created
after corporations were granted the rights of personhood and were
protected with sovereignty under the constitution.
Corporations are chartered at the state legislature and the decision to do
so was a blatant 180 turn from the previous origin of corporations -- the
sovereign King.
Arguing that national sovereignty is being threatened when the power of
corporations has been transfered from the elected state legislatures and
state constitutions to the executive branch of the corporate-regulatory
regime is a defense of the King in essence.
Whenever a citizen must defer to the regulatory executive branch in an
appeal for justice and diversity (the INS, the EPA, the NLRB, the FLA, the
USFS) then that citizen has already given up their sovereignty and they
have fundamentally lost their basic human rights.
Although some activists are focused on passing resolutions against
corporate personhood, filing legal petitions to revoke corporate charters,
and lobbying for constitutional amendments that declare corporations are
not persons, until we as a movement define sovereignty as our fundamental
basis for action we will be lost.
Is the American Revolution known as a movement asking the King (i.e. the
executive branch and sovereign corporate rulers) to treat us better?
Currently corporations are using personhood to stop not only campaign
finance reform but every, literally, every campaign for the public good.
Corporations currently have the legal right to declare all the campaigns
for the public good as violations of their rights to due process and the
rights to freedom of speech.
When I, with about a dozen others, personally challenged Gore in a "secret"
meeting about the corporate genocide of the U'WA his defense was that "the
overseer of his family trust fund is legally responsible not to transfer
the funds"!!! Under corporate sovereignty that person is legally held to
maximize profits.
Immediately after personhood was legally designated to corporations by a
corrupt robberbaron judge, in that same year, 230 state laws controlling
corporations were overturned in District Courts. These laws limited the
amount of time a corporation could exist. They made shareholders directly
responsible for corporate violations versus today's limited liability.
They designated the particular reasons why corporations could exist and did
not allow corporations to own other corporations or to make political
contributions. The finances of corporations were open to the public.
Between 1890 and 1910 307 cases were brought to the Supreme Court on the
basis of the fourteenth amendment to free African-American Slaves. But
only nineteen of those cases were on the behalf of African-Americans, the
other two hundred eighty eight were corporations seeking their new right to
due-process granted to them under personhood.
The Free Burma Resolution is now being considered by the US Supreme Court
and their decision to not allow citizens to pass resolutions deciding how
their tax dollars are spent vis a vis the behavior of corporations is a
direct conclusion of the 1886 judicial decision of corporation personhood.
Until activists forget about pleading to the regulatory bodies of the
executive branch, until activists demand sovereignty and the legal right to
control the chartered entities created by their representatives, then we
can not achieve any lasting justice and diversity.
See the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (www.poclard.org)
ON CARGILL:
>
> Cargill, controlled by the MacMillan family, and often noted as the
world's
> largest private corporation, is based in Minnetonka MN. (Cargill reportedsponsor
> annual sales of $56 billion, 1996; $51 billion, 1995; 47.1 billion,
> 1994--3/97, "Connection to the Americas," Resource Center of the Americas;
> www.americas.org/rcta/) I recently heard a local singer of Brazilian music
> tell a story about being chided by the MacMillan's servant for arriving at
> a MacMillan party to entertain. She had the nerve to ring the front door
> bell instead of going around to the service entrance! To think the house
> was stormed by the landless of Brazil--many created by Cargill!
>
> Anyway most of us only know Cargill as a prestigious tax-deductible
> of MN Nice "public" television or only by passing glances of celebratory(with
> power in the STRIB. Cargill is the largest grain trader in the world
> over 20% of the market--the Mpls. Grain X-Change being the center of themillers,
> trade); Cargill is the world's largest in malting barley production,
> world's largest producer of oilseed; and nearly tops the list of beef
> packers, hog slaughterers, cattle feeders, turkey producers, flour
> and phosphate fertilizer producers. Let's not forget it's dominance incapitalist
> steel, salt, peanuts, cotton, coffee, rubber, molasses, truck transport,
> chickens, organers, petrochemicals, coal, life insurance, futures, and
> metals processing. (source "Invisible Giant" by Kneen, see below for book
> reference, see also "The Boycott Quarterly," Summer 1997, Fred Renfroe).
>
> The key to Cargill is to realize that it's still a family empire and it's
> based on extremely secretive elite-state-sponsored destructive market
> control.
>
> Cargill was formed by "the MAN" Cargill, taking advantage of the
> speculative collapse of 1873 and buying up grain elevators in therailroad
> predictable developing wheat monoculture of the midwest. A "family"
> operation, Sam Cargill was particularly glowering and intimidating to his
> underlings. After vast cooperation with the elite state-sponsored
> robberbarons, central grain terminals averaged extremely high annual(Merchants
> returns on investments of 30 to 40 percent (between 1883-1889).
> of Grain, Dan Morgan) From 1909-1916 Cargill hovered on bankruptcy due toevery
> bad speculation investments in the Western U.S., during which MacMillan
> gained control of Cargill, through marriage and general "scheming." The
> Cargill and MacMillan Families are one of the main controllers of our
> growing tenuous food-industrial future as corporate capitalistmonocultural
> agribusiness destroys the planet. (Two of Will Cargill's grandchildernfamily
> still owned 10 percent of Cargill's stock as of Merchant of Grain's
> publication).
>
> 1922 Cargill opens New York City export office. 1929 Cargill's Argentina
> office opened and Cargill hired Chase Bank VP to secretly help with the
> Depression. European Market set up by Julius Hendel of grain broker
> background. Anti-Semitimism keeps Hendel from entering the prestigiousstated
> Mpls. Club for years. (I've heard that women and African-Americans were
> barred from the downtown elite club until decades later).
>
> In 1976, Senator Frank Church of the US Senate Subcommittee on
> Multinational Corporations, stated about the grain robbers: "No one knows
> how they operate, what their profits are, what they pay in taxes and what
> effect they have on our foreign policy - or much of anything else about
> them." (p. 16 Merchants of Grain). A high ranking petroleum officer
> "Those Cargill boys are really secretive" in comparision to his sector.Nader
> ibid. In fact the CIA regularly relies on Cargill's own private news
> agency.
>
> Of all the agribusiness giants, Cargill is "most thoroughly convinced of
> the rightness of its corporate cause," according to Dan Morgan, in his
> "Merchants of Grain." Not surprising to those of us in the land of MN
> NICE-Friendly Fascism. While Cargill's mansion or "Lake Office" on Lake
> Minnetonka (location ironically noted in detail on the St. Paul downtown
> Bus station map at Minnesota st. and 5th) processes languages from
> Cargill's operations in about 70 countries, Cargill still has other
> important office locations like Geneva. (see "The Big Boys" by Ralph
> for an insider's look at the Cargill, Lake Office atmosphere--I have acopy
> if interested).firms"
>
> The basic point to remember is that "there are only a few processing
> and "these firms receive a disproportionate share of the economic benefitsBeyond
> from the food system." As William D. Heffernan, Professor of Rural
> Sociology, U of Missouri, concludes US "farmers no longer sell in a
> competitive market." (Hey They Never DID as "Merchants of Grains"
> documents) (Minnesota Food Association "Digest" newsletter, Vol. Ten, No.
> 3, dec. 1996) For many details of Cargill's price manipulations at the
> expense of US farmers worldwide read the classic study "Food First:
> the Myth of Scarcity" by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph CollinsDrew
> (Ballantine, 1978) please see http://www.foodfirst.org/
>
> FURTHER RARE AND CRUCIAL DEVASTATING DETAILS On CARGILL: Excerpts from
> "The U of M Goldie X-Po$er: A State of Dis-Union Report," compiled by
> Hempel, graduate student, Master of Liberal Studies (full reportavailable
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