Christoph Reuss wrote:
> Ed Weick replied:
> > How beautifully smug! I understand that your bankers made quite a lot of
> > money from the gold and jewelry that the Nazis took from death-camp victims.
> > Europe, if you read its history, was a cesspool of wars, repressions and
> > mass exterminations. And it was Europeans who brought diseases and
> > enslavement to the Americas, accounting for the destruction of civilizations
> > and the deaths of perhaps 100 million people. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
> > get into this one, but on reading the above self-congratulatory puffery, I
> > just couldn't help it. But perhaps I misunderstood. Perhaps you intent was
> > some form of comic irony.
>
> Basically my smug description of Europe was a parody of Ray's smug
> description of America (or vice-versa for the negative descriptions).
I have no idea how you could see
anything that I have written as defending the history of
European Americans on this continent past present andI am quite cynical about the
future as well.
The gist of my post was threefold:1. I stated that an issue (such as the one
described by the Yugoslaveconomist from Toronto) which is "listed" , "described'
and
"understood" rarely creates change and is not an
answer too whatever the problem is. It is simply an inadequate
process in my opinion. I said:
>So you have to come up with a better script than "Describe
>the history", "list the atrocities" and everyone will "understand"
>and thus change!
2. The problem that economist Chussudovsky mentioned is not
new but is a common process that springs from the belief that
financial, i.e. economic value, constitutes real value in the
world. In that sense every economist who preaches economic
value above community morality or the growth of the human
consciousness or spirit is a collaborator in what Chussodovsky
is complaining about. I simply do not believe that this value
system can end in anything other than human conflict and death.
I used Wagner as an example because his own continual
harassment by bankers and others who refused to pay him
royalties (an Intellectual Capital issue) while reducing him
to a pauper in relation to his need for Physical Capital both
for common needs and the productions of his work has been
used and abused by people on all sides of the political,
religious and cultural spectrum. The greatest composer and
theoretical mind of the 19th century was forced into prison
and ran from country to country while writing his greatest
works. There were 3 and 1/2 million refugees washing
across the face of Europe as the economists and aristocracy
played their games. The king of Bavaria said that he would
have executed Wagner for his philosophical support of the
Democracy movement in Dresden where he was being paid
a pittance for masterworks and conducting as well.
All to say this is not new. Nor is it old for people like my
sister to be abducted by a government and sent thousands
of miles from family, friends and culture to a school to
drive the Indian out. Or for Gypsy children, like the Bolshoi
ballerina studying with me at present, to be abducted by the
Swiss government and put with Gadje families who were
supposed to drive out the culture from their genetics as well.
Luckily for the ballerina she was first in Russia and later
Denmark where her talent was honored and she received
exceptional instruction rather than being put in jail for
"stealing children" or some other lie.
I said:
>Don't you know all of those Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and
>Mahler songs dealing with the European people on the other
>side of those bankers?
3. And finally I said:
>Goodness is not cultural and neither is greed or evil.
>(I wrote about the church in my last post so I don't
>consider it to be an answer either.) But the issue of
>living together is one that we must solve and doing it
>creatively must also happen or we are doomed to be
>replaced.
(by another species.)
> Then again, your above criticism misses the point as it talks of the
> (distant) past, whereas my comparisions referred to the present
> (according to Ray's appeal to "live in the present").
Not a bad idea, "truly living in the present" although I can't findthe phrase in
that post. Perhaps you could post what you are
referencing as I am in this case. That would make it simpler.
> [And much
> could be said about the role of US bankers in nazi/other wars.]
I agree and you could list Henry Ford as well.
Lest you believe that I am against Europeans or the Swiss in
particular, I would say that it may be true that a Swiss person
saying what I have said would be expressing those feelings.
However, in my case as I have said over the years on this
list that you should not mistake passion for a curse. I have
taught voice to wonderful Swiss students and one of my favorite
teachers sang in Zurich at the opera for many years. I
seek only solutions and discussion. I do not have the answers
but I do have many questions and history with everything that
I have said.
Last week I also heard the National Rifle Association use
the Swiss requirement for weapons and food in their
basements as a justification for the free flow of firearms
in America no matter how many street gangs, drug lords
or disgruntled adolescents have them.
All of this is a repugnant deliberate misreading of cultural
differences and solutions and IMO constitutes an abuse of
those used. Including the Swiss Army. On the other hand
your comment about 500 years was only true in a technical
sense and you know it. In that same vein I could say:
"Consider that Europe, a continent 1/5th the size of the U.S.
and Canada, has yet to unify into a multi-cultural state or
even a cooperative serious market."
I could say that "America is superior because in America
there exists every culture on earth living together relatively
peacefully and we have inter-state commerce across the
entire continent. Also, the last inter cultural war was more
than 100 years ago."
But if I said that it would be polemic and gratuitous and
only half true. So what is the point? If we don't figure
out a way to respect on another, do away with poverty and
tyranny and predatory international dogmas that prey on the
less powerful, and to provide work that fulfills the vocational
soul of individual potentials, family and cultures then we are
failures as markets, individuals, countries and even humans.
Thus far cooperation has only come about as a result of
violent revolution which destroys over a million years of
wisdom and culture every time it happens, or the creation
of an enemy to mobilize public attitudes and join the
disparate sections of the nation. Like the creation of Germany
in the 19th century, the UK, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia and yes
the United States of America in 1776.
In my opinion we suffer from a poverty of workable non-violent
models and imagination.
Which brings us to work and it's future. Reference my
two earlier posts today.
Ray Evans Harrell
