Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Psychology of Power: Hazardous Shifts

Psychology of Power. (Excerpted from doctoral candidate's dissertation, do not copy)

Leaders operate in an arena of known and unknown players as well as shifting factors. Allies, opponents, rivals and neutral parties shift. High priority is placed on shaping information and establishing status.

Resources, legal systems, political systems, investigatory power and information dispersal are in the hands of authority.

Reward and penalty, safety and precariousness, predictability and chaos- these are conditions that are tools of those in authority.

The more authority that is gained the more a leader runs hazards which render the leader and the systems ineffective.

Hazardous Authority Shifts

  • Defense to destabilization to offensive conflict, to coups to assassinations to acute social intimidation and violence
  • Information manipulation to disinformation to a lack of real information
  • Research to group profiling to personal spying
  • Propaganda to group manipulation to group think to mental programming
  • Psychological pressure to torture to mental control of individuals
  • Received notions substitute for discovery
  • Search for truth (which is often exhausting and unproductive) to adversarial quest and short term competitions to ‘win’ (producing short lived satisfaction and shifting goal lines)
  • Set rules and norms to internal predictability to exploitable calculability
  • Unpredictability becomes chaos and disorder
Hazardous Mental Shifts
  • Blurring the line between self serving accounts and self delusion
  • Semio-linguistic manipulation, code words, meaningless platitudes, double talk, become the basis for rationalizing
  • Semio-linguistic manipulation, code words, platitudes, double talk create a trench of miscommunication
  • Isolation from social segments become a divorced reality
  • Facile justification becomes a moral void
  • Rigidity in cultural, educational and ideological prisms become blindness
  • Rejection of received knowledge becomes nihilism
  • Empathy with competitors becomes sympathy
  • Personal-egoism becomes 'schizophrenia'- Failure to distinguish what is self-serving and what 'should' occur by other moral approaches
  • Blurred separation in 'accounts' of events and 'most likely reality'- Failure to distinguish lies and truth, information and disinformation
  • Fear of others does not allow one to recognize fear in others
  • Respect of one's own ability causes a lack of respect for ability of others
  • (Reported or) media created reality assumes the uncontested accounting of reality








Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Not Out of China: Gunpowder, Paper, Compass, Printing Press

In the Western perspectives of the past, the Oriental mind has often been seen by turns cunning, ruthless and exotic and filled with endless possibilities.  China and the Far East were beyond the more pressing threat of the Near East, nor was it colored with a contested Holy Land and a history of crusades. Proximity, the shared Hellenic cultural heritage and universal Abrahamic faiths made the people of the Near East too familiar rivals to be innocuously exotic.  

We still are more likely to charge the Near East with being archaic, to envision their societies as being some less evolved version of ourselves.  If the Near East is the object of our antipathy, so Near Eastern history and accomplishments are becoming the object of our scholarly hostility, at least in terms of popular ideas. Anything even obliquely related to the Near East has ceased to be an area of neutrality in popular historical study.

Joseph Needham, Sinologist and the original multiculturalist is famous for specious claims about the exotic East.  Needham gave us one of the most charged and assumptive questions in sociology- The Needham Question", or why had isolated China if they had accomplished all that Needham and Sinophiles like him claimed, stagnate as the rest of the world thoroughly surpassed them? China neither possessed the degree of "first mover" advantages claimed by Needham and it was  in contact with the rest of the world more than Needham cared to realize, causing some of his most egregious errors that have made his name a byword for compromised scholarship in the West (though he is easily the most highly regarded Western "historian" in China). 

One could hardly single out Needham in some respects: long before "Berthold Schwarz, or Black Bart", the fictitious friar and inventor of the gun, Europeans had gotten in to the habit of fudging history to increase their own cultural self confidence and to rob others of regard and respect. Today, the pendulum has swung Needham's way, with the excesses of Western multiculturalism and with the economic emergence of China among other nations and cultures who are refashioning their history (often with little restraint in regards to truth or accuracy) to create a sense of their own confidence and to garner respect from other cultures. 

Arising from that has been the neatly packaged, "four great Chinese inventions".  If it sounds like something emanating from the public relations department of the People's Republic of China, that is because it was.  The Four Great Inventions theme was hit upon by the Chinese government in 2005 and was featured as one of the main themes of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.  They have the added "benefit" in some cases of discrediting inventions from their Near Eastern origins while gladdening the heart of multiculturalists. The assertions however are simply dead wrong and offer not a single shred of support for upsetting sound history. 

These revisions also do disservice to the civilizations and the study of history. They overshadow and de-contextualizing important achievements; and most importantly by their agenda they obscure that the accomplishments should be esteemed as the accomplishments of mankind.

Not out of China: Gunpowder, Paper, Compass, Printing Press

GUNPOWDER

Greek fire was one of the most effective thermal devices, although it was extremely dangerous for the users A combustible liquid, it could be shot from siphons or catapults, and it burst into flames on impact. First developed by the Byzantines in present day Turkey in the 7th century, it was later used by the Turks during the Crusades, and was probably first used in Western Europe in the 12th century.

Early experiments by the Byzantines in the 6th century used a mixture of sulfur and oil, which would have been terrifying if not destructive. Various versions seem to have existed, and the recipes were frequently kept secret; experts today still debate the exact composition, although some recipes are known.  It  had regional variations.  A popular version known around the Islamic  was "naft" and had a petroleum base, with sulfur and saltpeter. 

Saltpetre was one of the costliest expendables ever required in warfare, so there was ample incentive to use the least amount possible. Mixtures in which pure nitrates are not predominant deflagrate only, and do not explode.

Potassium nitrate was known to Arab chemists,with the earliest description is by Khalid ibn Yazid (635-704), and was later described and used many times, for example by Jabir ibn Hayyan (722-815),  by Al-Razi and others. Saltpeter was called "natrun" but also had other names indicating its ore origins, for example, (Shabb Yamani or "Yemeni alum") and (thalj al-Sīn, or "Chinese snow," as Muslims got the ore from China and Yemen among other places). Muslims went beyond the use of the impractical ore material, and began purifying it. George Sarton states in that Muslims were the first to purify saltpeter.

The earliest Arabic manuscripts with gunpowder recipes are two undated manuscripts, but one of them (the al-Karshuni manuscript) was dated by historians Marcellin Berthelot and Rubens Duval to be from the ninth to the eleventh century, both manuscripts mention saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur as the sole ingredients of gunpowder.
 
Prior to true gunpowder, the fire lance was a bamboo tube several feet long reenforced with tightly wound string. It was loaded with a deflagrating powder and various projectiles, in fact much like a kind of Roman candle. It was lighted from a fuze projecting from the muzzle, whereupon it would discharge its fire, gases, and projectiles to the front at relatively slow velocity. Weapons of this type were used  by the 13th century, among the Arabs, in India, and among the Chinese, Mongols and Tatars around 1250. Roger Bacon already knew about this in 1257, and described it in Epistolae de Secretis Operibus of that date as a device to make noise like thunder and a flash like lightning, giving an anagrammatic recipe for the powder.

The more saltpetre that the mixture contains, the quicker and more fiercely it burns. The Chinese had firecrackers for a very long time, but they contained no gunpowder. They were simply pieces of green bamboo that would crack loudly when thrown into a fire, and thereby scare away evil spirits. The proto-gunpowder of the Chinese, which included wax, resins, oils and roots was not true gunpowder, lacking the necessary explosive effect of the classic 75 percent saltpetre, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur; the later two ingredients were not used and the first no where close to the necessary levels. The proto-gunpowder, when confined in a strong paper tube the size of a finger joint, would make a terrifying loud bang, and these new firecrackers were very effective against evil spirits. The invention proceeded no further in China, beyond incendiaries, fire lances, and firecrackers. Actual gunpowder and cannon were reintroduced to China by the Portuguese and others, under unfortunate terms of colonization.

The first recording of the formula of true gunpowder, 75 percent saltpetre, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur was definitely among the Arabs, and clearly set out in formula.  They apparently tinkered with Byzantine and Chinese compounds for "Greek fire" and some etymologists read as "Chinese snow", attesting to the wide knowledge of Byzantine, Turkish, Indian and perhaps Chinese ingredients and inspirations they had in creating explosive chemicals.

Several almost identical compositions were first described by the Arabic engineer Hasan al-Rammah as a recipe for the rockets (tayyar) he described in his al-Furusiyya wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices) in 1270. Several examples include a tayyar "rocket" (75% saltpetre, 8% sulfur, 15% carbon) and the tayyar buruq "lightning rocket" (74% saltpetre, 10% sulfur, 15% carbon). He states in his book that many of these recipes were known to his father and grandfather, hence dating back to at least the late 12th century. Compositions for an explosive gunpowder effect were not known in China or Europe until the 14th century. We can find the first book dedicated for gunpowder and its uses in the works Hasan al-Rammah's Al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya (The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices), written in the 1270s, which included the first gunpowder recipes to approach the ideal composition for explosive gunpowder used in modern times (75% saltpetre (KNO3), 10% sulfur, 15% carbon), such as the tayyar "rocket" (75 parts saltpetre, 8 sulfur, and 15 carbon, by weight) and the tayyar buruq "lightning rocket" (74 parts saltpetre, 10 sulfur, 15 carbon). He states in his book that many of these recipes were known to his father and grandfather, hence dating back to at least the late 12th century.

The place and time of the invention of the cannon is unknown.  Because of the explosive power of gunpowder, heavy metal canon was necessary. but its evolution from the fire lance among the Turks, Arabs and Europeans can hardly be doubted.

This article was possible with the research and information of Dr. James B. Calvert, Associate Professor Emeritus of Engineering, University of Denver, Registered Professional Engineer, State of Colorado No.1231


PAPER

Ancient Egyptians used papyrus for printing since. The thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge. Papyrus is first known to have been used in ancient Egypt (at least as far back as the First dynasty), but it was also used throughout the Mediterranean region.  It would eventually decline in usage with the popularity of vellum or cheaply made thin, stretched and split hides which had the benefit of being more supple and thus suitable for scrolls and folding. Papyrus however was used until the popularization of cheap paper was introduced from the Arabs

A form of book was invented in India, of palm leaves. The technology was first transferred to Korea in 604 and then imported to Japan by a Buddhist priests, around 610, where fibres (called bast) from the mulberry tree were used.

The Han Dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun is widely regarded to have made paper from wood pulp in 105 AD. The paper was thin and translucent, not like modern western paper, and thus only written on one side.  There is no evidence of the recent Chinese legend that this paper making technique was passed by a "Chinese prisoner" in Baghdad though the apocryphal tale is widely repeated.

In America, archaeological evidence indicates that about two millenniums ago paper was invented by the Mayans and spread throughout Central America, Mexico and beyond to parts of North America and South America. Called amatl it was in widespread use among Mesoamerican cultures at the time of the Spanish conquest. The Mayan and Aztec kept these events chronicled in libraries full of books written on amatl. Paper was  a central aspect of Mayan and Aztec life used for records, books of government, ceremonial tributes, clothing, and everyday writingIn small quantities, traditional paper making techniques are still practiced today.

The first paper books and indeed modern paper mills were invented in Baghdad in the 8th century where the Arabs invented a method to make a thicker sheet of paper. The manufacture had spread to Damascus by the time of the First Crusade in the 11th century, but the wars interrupted production, and it split into two book making centres. Cairo continued with the thicker paper. Iran became the centre of the thinner papers. 

Paper making was also adopted in India. The first paper mill in Europe was in Spain, at Xavia (modern Valencia) in 1120. More mills appeared in Fabriano, Italy in about the 13th Century as an import from Islamic Spain. They used hemp and linen rags as a source of fibre. The oldest known paper document in the West is the Mozarab Missal of Silos from the 11th Century, probably written in the Islamic part of Spain. 

Paper is recorded as being manufactured in both Italy and Germany by 1400, just about the time when the woodcut printing technique was transferred from fabric to paper in the old master and popular prints.

Some historians speculate that paper was a key element in global cultural advancement. According to this theory, Chinese culture was less developed than the West in ancient times prior to the Han Dynasty because bamboo, while abundant, was a clumsier writing material than papyrus; Chinese culture advanced during the Han Dynasty and preceding centuries due to the invention of paper; and Europe advanced during the Renaissance due to the introduction of paper and the printing press.

In the very small quantities needed for popular prints, paper was affordable by the European urban working class and many peasants even in the 1400s, but books remained expensive until the nineteenth century. However, even poor families could often afford a few by the 1700s in England, if they so chose.

Paper remained relatively expensive, at least in book-sized quantities, through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could make paper with fibres from wood pulp. Although older machines predated it, the Fourdrinier paper making machine became the basis for most modern paper making. Together with the invention of the practical fountain pen and the mass produced pencil of the same period, and in conjunction with the advent of the steam driven rotary printing press, wood based paper caused a major transformation of the 19th century economy and society in industrialized countries. With the introduction of cheaper paper, schoolbooks, fiction, non-fiction, and newspapers became gradually available to all the members of an industrial society for the first time by 1900.



MAGNETIC COMPASS

Lodestone is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets. Ancient people first discovered the property of magnetism in lodestone. Pieces of lodestone, suspended so they could turn, were the first magnetic compasses, and their importance to early navigation is indicated by the name lodestone, which in Middle English means 'course stone' or 'leading stone'.                              

John B. Carlson researched the earliest compasses of lodestone, in Central America. The purposefully shaped polished bar with a groove and composition of the magnetic mineral with magnetic moment vector in the floating plane), the Olmec, a sophisticated people who possessed advanced knowledge and skill in working iron ore minerals, used what would be called a zeroth-order compass, if not a first-order compass. The pieces of the device today could undeniably used as a geomagnetically directed pointer and the original whole bar pointing magnetic north-south. The groove functions well as a sighting mark, and the slight angle it makes with the axis of the bar appears to be the result of calibration. Whether such a pointer would have been used to point to something astronomical (zeroth-order compass) or to geomagnetic north-south (first-order compass) is entirely open to speculation. The observation of the family of Olmec site alignments calibrated  8° west of north is a curiosity in its own right, and the possibility that these alignments have an astronomical or geomagnetic origin should be explored.  Other scientist have discovered similar remnants of ancient American devices utilizing the directional property of the stone.

It is constructive to compare the first millennium Chinese, who used the lodestone compass for geomancy, with the Gulf Coast Olmec since both were agrarian-terrestrial societies. The Olmec's apparent concern with orientation and skillful use of magnetic minerals also stimulates one to draw cross-cultural parallels. The evidence and analysis offered in this article provide a basis for hypotheses of parallel cultural developments in China and the Olmec New World. If the Olmec did discover the geomagnetic orienting properties of lodestone, as did the Han Chinese, it is most reasonable to speculate that they would have used their compass for comparable geomantic purposes. It should, however, be recognized that the Olmec claim predates the Chinese discovery of the geomagnetic lodestone compass by more than a millennium.

The first incontestable reference to a magnetized needle in Chinese literature appears as late as 1086 according to Li Shu-hua in "Origine de la Boussole.  The Dream Pool Essay by scholar Shen Kua (which exists in translation by problematic sinologist Robert Needham) is reported to contain a detailed description of how geomancers magnetized a needle by rubbing its tip with lodestone, hung the magnetic needle with one single strain of silk with a bit of wax attached to the center of the needle, and that a needle prepared this way sometimes pointed south, sometimes north.

According to researcher Barbara Kreutz there is only a single Chinese reference to a dry-mounted needle (built into a pivoted wooden tortoise) which is dated to between 1150 and 1250, and claims that there is no clear indication that Chinese mariners ever used anything but the floating needle in a bowl until the 16th-century.

There is a debate over the parallel development or diffusion of the magnetic compass. At present, according to Kreutz, the evidence we have is that the Chinese invention predates the first European device as Chinese had previously been aware of its orienting property prior to documented navigational use. 

The first known European mention of a magnetized needle and its use among sailors occurs in Alexander Neckam's De naturis rerum (On the Natures of Things), written in Paris 1190.

An unproven assumption is that the Arabs served as an intermediary, improving and introducing the navigational compass between China, Europe and parts of South Asia and East Africa. In the Arab world, the earliest known reference however comes in The Book of the Merchants' Treasure, written by one Baylak al-Kibjaki in Cairo about 1282. Since the author describes having witnessed the use of a compass on a ship trip some forty years earlier, some scholars are inclined to antedate its first appearance accordingly. There is also a slightly earlier non-Mediterranean Muslim reference to an iron fish-like compass in a Persian talebook from 1232.  Much of this information was only widely disseminated recently when published by Western researchers leaving the possibility of earlier mention in Arab texts that would give credence to an exchange of information rather than several parallel and near simultaneous invention of a similar device.

The Arabs who benefited by their invention of the astrolabe, knowledge of other directional reckoning devices and other more precise navigational techniques did not place a tremendous amount of value on the lodestone compass in seafaring, seeing it as one of many useful devices for orienting. The early Arabic sources on the magnetic compass are very detailed about designs and uses giving credence to longer development of the principles and the device however. One of the chief uses that was found was the application in a device that with a timepiece could assist with the orientation of daily prayers.


PRINTING PRESS

The history of ancient woodcuts and block printing goes back at least four thousand years ago in Middle East and Near East. Woodcuts were used in ancient Egypt, Sumeria and Babylonia. Later among the Greeks and Romans and still later the Chinese used wood blocks for stamping patterns on textiles and for text reproduction and illustration. By AD 1000 examples of woodblock printing on paper were popular in Islamic Egypt. 

Woodcuts appeared throughout Europe at the beginning of the 15th cent., when they were used to make religious pictures for distribution to pilgrims, on playing cards and simple prints, and for the block book which preceded printing. At that time the artist and the artisan were one, the same person designing the cut and carving the block. One of the first dated European woodcuts is a St. Christopher of 1423. 

These were not printed using metal movable type nor were they utilizing the type of press necessary in the printing press which had the all important function of allowing rapid arrangement and printing of copies.  The "block-print", that is, characters or pictures were carved into a wooden block, inked, and then transferred to paper in a similar way that block printing had been in use in numerous regions, including Europe. A new block had to be carved for each new impression, and the block was discarded as unusable as soon as a different impression was needed. Since each word, phrase or picture was on a separate block, this method of reproduction was expensive and time-consuming.  Woodcuts were also not sufficiently durable as they would split in the press after repeated use, though they were later combined into the movable type presses for limited illustrations. 

By the middle of the 15th century several print masters were on the verge of perfecting the techniques of printing with movable metal type. The first man to demonstrate the practicability of movable type was Johannes Gutenberg (c.1398-1468), the son of a noble family of Mainz, Germany. A former stonecutter and goldsmith, Gutenberg devised an alloy of lead, tin and antinomy that would melt at low temperature, cast well in the die, and be durable in the press. It was then possible to use and reuse the separate pieces of type, as long as the metal in which they were cast did not wear down, simply by arranging them in the desired order. The mirror image of each letter (rather than entire words or phrases), was carved in relief on a small block. Individual letters, easily movable, were put together to form words; words separated by blank spaces formed lines of type; and lines of type were brought together to make up a page. Since letters could be arranged into any format, an infinite variety of texts could be printed by reusing and resetting the type.

By 1452, with the aid of borrowed money, Gutenberg began his famous Bible project. Two hundred copies of the two-volume Gutenberg Bible were printed, a small number of which were printed on vellum. The expensive and beautiful Bibles were completed and sold at the 1455 Frankfurt Book Fair, and cost the equivalent of three years' pay for the average clerk. Roughly fifty of all Gutenberg Bibles survive today.

In spite of Gutenberg's efforts to keep his technique a secret, the printing press spread rapidly. Before 1500 some 2500 European cities had acquired presses. German masters held an early leadership, but the Italians soon challenged their preeminence. The Venetian printer Aldus Manutius published works, notably editions of the classics.

The immediate effect of the printing press was to multiply the output and cut the costs of books. It thus made information available to a much larger segment of the population who were, of course, eager for information of any variety. Libraries could now store greater quantities of information at much lower cost. Printing also facilitated the dissemination and preservation of knowledge in standardized form -- this was most important in the advance of science, technology and scholarship. The printing press certainly initiated an "information revolution" on par with the Internet today. Printing could and did spread new ideas quickly and with greater impact.


Pre-Gutenberg Printing


Blockprinting in Blind on Clay and Gold

MS 5106
ROYAL INSCRIPTION OF NARAM-SÎN: NARAM-SÎN WHO BUILT THE TEMPLE OF ISHTAR
MS in Sumerian on clay, Akkad, Sumer, 2291-2254 BC, 1 brick printing block, 13x13x10 cm, 3 lines in a large formal cuneiform script, large loop handle.
Context: There are three more brick stamps of Naram-Sîn with the same text known: one in the Oriental Institute of University of Chicago, one in Kalamazoo pbublic library, Michiga, and a tiny fragment in British Museum. (Frayne 1993: 120-21)
Commentary: Naram-Sîn was the first king to use blocks for printing bricks. Prior to him the inscriptions on the bricks were written by hand. These 3 brick stamps with the known bricks, is the earliest evidence of printing, in this case blindprinting on soft clay.
MS 5106Published: Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 24, p. 50, pl. XX.

MS 1937
TO NINGIRSU, MIGHTY WARRIOR OF ENLIL, GUDEA RULER OF LAGASH MADE IT SPLENDID FOR HIM AND BUILT FOR HIM THE TEMPLE OF THE SHINING IMDUGUD BIRD AND RESTORED IT
Blockprint in blind in Sumerian on clay, Lagash, Sumer, 2141-2122 BC, 1 brick, 32x32x7 cm, 6+4 columns, in cuneiform script.
Context: Foundation inscriptions of Gudea in The Schøyen collection are MSS 1877, 1895, 1936, 1937 and 2890. Building cones, see MSS 1791/1-2.
Commentary: Gudea built or rather rebuilt, at least 15 temples in the city-state of Lagash. The present brick has deposits of the bitumen that originally bound the bricks together in the wall of the temple.
MS 1937Published: Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, texts 29-30, p. 52, pl. XXV.


MS 2764
AMAR-SIN OF NIPPUR, CHOSEN BY ENLIL, MIGHTY HERO, THE TEMPLE OF ENLIL, BRICK STAMP INSCRIPTION
MS in Neo Sumerian on white marble, Sumer, 2046-2038 BC, 1 brick printing block, 18,5x10,0x3,5 cm, single column, 7 lines in cuneiform script, with a handle on the back.
Context: There are only 2 more brick printing blocks of Naram-Sîn known, one intact with a cylindrical handle in Istanbul, and a tiny fragment in British Museum.
MS 2764Commentary: Naram-Sîn was the first king to use blocks for printing bricks. Prior to him the inscriptions on the bricks were written by hand. These 3 brick stamps with the known bricks, is the earliest evidence of printing, in this case blindprinting on soft clay.
Published: Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 16, p. 20, pl. XII.


MS 1878
AMAR-SIN IN NIPPUR, CALLED BY ENLIL WHO SUPPORTS THE TEMPLE OF ENLIL, POWERFUL MALE, KING OF UR, KING OF THE 4 QUARTERS OF THE WORLD
MS 1878Blockprint in blind in Neo Sumerian on clay, Nippur, Sumer, reign of King Amar-Sin, 2047-2038 BC, 1 brick, 17x19x6 cm, originally ca. 33x33x6 cm, 9 columns, (10x11 cm) in cuneiform script.
Context: An original brick printing block of Amar-Sin is MS 2764.
Commentary: Enlil was the chief Sumerian god, whose main temple was in Nippur.
See also MS 1876/1, Hammurabi brick, Babylonia, 1792-1750 BC
Published: Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 34, pp. 55-56, pl. XXVI.
Commentary: Enlil was the chief Sumerian god, whose main temple was in Nippur.
See also MS 1876/1, Hammurabi brick, Babylonia, 1792-1750 BC
Published: Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 34, pp. 55-56, pl. XXVI. ommentary: Enlil was the chief Sumerian god, whose main temple was in Nippur.
See also MS 1876/1, Hammurabi brick, Babylonia, 1792-1750 BC



MS 1815/1
TOWER OF BABEL BRICK
NEBUCHADNEZZAR, KING OF BABYLON, GUARDIAN OF THE TEMPLES ESAGILA AND EZIDA, FIRSTBORN SON OF NABOPOLASSAR, KING OF BABYLON

Blockprint in blind in Neo Babylonian on clay, Babylon, 604-562 BC, 1 brick, 33x33x9 cm, single column, (11x15 cm), 7 lines in cuneiform script blindprinted into the wet clay, within a lined rectangle, prior to baking.
MS 1815/1Context: Bricks with this inscription were found during the excavation of the great Ziggurat. It stands just north of Esagila, the temple of Marduk, also mentioned in the inscription.

Commentary: The ziggurat in Babylon was originally built around the time of Hammurabi 1792-1750 BC. The restoration and enlargement began under Nabopolassar, and was finished after 43 years of work under Nebuchadnezzar II, 604-562 BC. It has been calculated that at least 17 million bricks had to be made and fired. Babylon with the ziggurat was captured by Kyros 538 BC, Dareios I 519 BC, Xerxes ca. 483 BC, and entirely destroyed by Alexander I the Great 331 BC. It is this tall stepped temple tower which is referred to in Genesis 11:1-9, and became known as "The Tower of Babel". The bricks are specifically mentioned in Genesis 11:3: "Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire. - For stone they used bricks and for mortar they used bitumen". The black bitumen is still visible on the back of the present baked brick. These bricks are considered so important and interesting that British Museum had their copy on exhibit with special handout descriptions, from where parts of the present information is taken. For a stele illustrating The Tower of Babel, see MS 2063. Nebuchadnezzar II was the founder of the New Babylonian empire. He captured Jerusalem in 596 and 586 BC, burnt down the temple and all of Jerusalem, carried its treasures off to Babylon, and took the Jews into captivity (2 kings 24-25). Nebuchadnezzar II is the king who is named more than 90 times in the Old Testament. Daniel 1-4 is almost entirely devoted to the description of his greatness and reign, his rise and fall, and submission to God.
Exhibited: 1. The Bibliophile Society of Norway's 75th anniversary. Bibliofilklubben 75 år. Jubileumsutstilling Bok og Samler, Universitetsbliblioteket 27.2 - 26.4.1997; 2. XVI Congress of the International Organization for the study of the Old Testament. Faculty of Law Library, University of Oslo, 29 July - 7 August 1998.
Published: Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 79, p. 181, pls. LXVIII, LXX.
.



MS 5236
MS 5236INVOCATION TO THE GOD PHOEBUS APOLLO WHO RULES OVER MAN, POURING OUT LIBATIONS TO HIM, THAT HE MAY TAKE UP ARMS AND GO THROUGH THE ENEMY'S ARMY TO FREE OR DISCHARGE THE PEOPLE; IN HEXAMETER

Printing in Greek on gold, Euboia, Greece, or Knidos, Turkey, ca. 6th c. BC, 1 lamella with rounded corners, 2,8x9,0x0,1 cm, 6 lines in fine Greek capitals of Euboia or Knidos type.
Provenance: 1. Provenance: 1. Edith Horsley, London (1965-2000).
Commentary: This is the only gold example of amulets known generically as ephesia grammata, for lead ones, see Kotansky 111-112. References to them in Greek comedies and other literary texts, suggest that they were mass produced and frequently worn. This is the only surviving example that actually has been printed and not incised, directly into the soft metal. The thin sheet of gold was placed over the prototype with raised letters, and pressure applied to the upper side of the gold in order to print the letters in blind. Normally printing refers to use of paper or vellum and ink, or without ink (blind printing), applying blocks or movable types of wood, stone or metals. If the definition of blind printing also includes soft materials like wet clay, lead or gold, in addition to paper, this lamella appears to be the earliest printing in Europe. The above information is partly kindly supplied by Dr. Dominic Montserrat.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The War of Ideas in the Middle East
The War of Ideas in the Middle East

The back-of-the-envelope history of the Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was formed by B'nai B'rith in 1913 to be the leading Jewish defense agency in the wake of the conviction of Leo Frank, an officer of the National Pencil Co. of Atlanta, Georgia, for the murder of 13 year old Mary Phagan, a shop floor worker at the pencil factory. It was a verdict that many believed to be a miscarriage of justice, which was compounded by Frank being kidnapped from prison two years later and lynched, the only American Jew known to have suffered that fate.

By 1937, the Anti-Defamation League had embarked on another occupation, assisting in keeping files and spying on who were alleged to be communist or pro-communist organizations and individuals. In that year, a 1947 Congressional hearing revealed, it had begun providing information on the recently formed National Lawyers Guild and on individuals applying for government jobs to the original House Committee on Un-American Activities chaired by the notorious racist and anti-semite, Rep. Martin Dies, which came to be referred to simply as the Dies Committee.

In the anti-communist witch hunts conducted at the beginning of the Cold War, the ADL assisted and acted as a go-between for both the Congressional committees and members or former members of the CPUSA who chose to inform on their former comrades and friends.  (With Jewish domination of most of CPUSA and most of the the communist movement in the U.S. this served many purposes.)

While the ADL’s recent public face was that of an organization determined to rid the country of neo-Nazis and skinheads, its raison d’etre in the absence of any serious threats of anti-semitism, was not defense of Jews, per se, but defense of Israel and the intimidation and public humiliation of its critics. While that invariably gained the ADL headlines, what was hidden from the public was of equal importance.

The ADL, by the late 1980s had begun one of the largest private spying operations in the United States, a fact that was discovered by the San Francisco police in 1992 when it raided the ADL office after discovering that it had been working with a rogue SF cop, Tom Gerard, who had been providing the organization with personal non-public information about a host of American citizens, but, in particular, those supporting the Palestinian cause and opposing South African apartheid.

It turned out that this cop was partnering with a San Francisco weight lifter, Roy Bullock, who had infiltrated the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a number of other organizations and had in his files the names of over 10,000 individuals and over 600 organizations, most of which were kept in what Bullock labeled as Pinko files. Bullock and Gerard were also being paid by South African intelligence officials to provide them with the same information on anti-apartheid activism that they had been collecting for the ADL.

Bullock had been identified as the ADL’s “main fact finder” by the late Irwin Suall, who headed the group’s intelligence apparatus, but depositions taken at the time revealed there were similar spying operations being conducted by the ADL across the United States. Despite the ADL having promised to cease trying to illegally obtain information on its enemies at the time in exchange for not being prosecuted, there is no evidence that it has. Rather it has strengthened its ties with police across the country through its LEARN program (Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network) in which it trains police in dealing with what they deem to be “extremist groups” and “hate crimes”  (which often focuses on what the ADL perceives as enemies and rivals from other ethnic groups, whether it be Muslims, African Americans, Whites, Mexicans and anti Zionists and aggressive critics of all stripes.)

The ADL has become identified with the antics and pronouncements of its long-time national director, Abe Foxman, who has made a name for himself by taking on anyone he considers guilty of anti-Semitism, which means criticizing Israel or the abuse of Jewish power. In the past this has included Marlon Brando, Mel Gibson, and most recently Oliver Stone. Jews are not immune, as New York University professor Tony Judt, a very moderate critic of Israel policy found out in 2006 when Foxman interceded with the Polish Consulate in New York to prevent the British Jewish writer from giving a talk in the building’s meeting room on “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”

Now, Foxman is in the headlines once again, trying to prevent an Islamic center, one that would be open to everyone, from being constructed adjacent to the site of the World Trade Center bombing. This would appear to be a clear violation of the mission statement of the organization, part of which states that its “purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” For Foxman, apparently, that mission no longer includes Muslims.

Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel Lobby, US Politics

{ 41 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. worker bee says:
    Not “adjacent.” Two blocks away. C’mon, guys, you should know better! ;)
    “an Islamic center, one that would be open to everyone, from being constructed adjacent to the site of the World Trade Center bombing.”
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    • Berthe says:
      And you can’t see the WTC site from the Islamic Center site. Theres a couple of big buildings in the way.
      How is the ADL still a respectable organization with this history? It sounds more like a hate group.
      “In the absence of any serious threats of anti-semitism,” indeed. The “American Al Qaeda,” youtube and tv news phony Adam Gadahn/Pearlman is the grandson of an ADL board member. That “Revolution Muslim” group whose members had all been West Bank settlers from Brooklyn.” There was a story recently of a Jewish girl at George Washington University who painted swastikas on her own dorm door and got caught by a concealed camera.  Makes you wonder how coordinated, funded and organized it all is.
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    • PG says:
      ADL’s objection to the Mosque is one issue; equally if not more important and frightening is ADL’s access to private information about your and my life and family.
      Consider: ADL Trains US Police Forces and FBI
      • U.S. Law Enforcement Receive Counter-Terrorism Training in Israel
      09/11/09
      U.S. law enforcement professionals taken to Israel as part of the ADL National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS).
      • Civil Rights Division Staff Present at Annual Conference of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools
      08/12/09
      ADL led two workshops at the annual conference of the US Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools in Washington, D.C. in early August.
      • Domestic Extremism Briefings in Southern California
      07/30/09
      Briefings to law enforcement in Southern California on right-wing extremism and the white power subculture.
      • ADL Presents for United States Park Police
      07/20/09
      Full-day training program on extremism hosted by the United States Park Police in Washington, D.C.
      . . .
      The Department of Homeland Security was Joe Lieberman’s idea. Dana Priest was interviewed on C Span Washington Journal about a week ago (before the full impact of Priest’s massive study of the explosion of US intelligence gathering contractors was buried under the chatter over Julian Assange’s revelations.) Priest said that no one understands how Homeland Security works; it’s an agglomeration of laws and rules pulled in from numerous other government institutions.

      ADL has access to police information (not going to bother right now to research the police information systems that link records from all over the country into databases accessible to . . . . to ADL.

      You want to go public with your activism, you feel patriotic; are you willing to expose your private life to attack by ADL who will intimidate you?

      Americans have been systematically and systemically intimidated.This happened before: this is how Zionists in Germany from the 1880s thru 1940s terrorized the German public. THAT is why Germans reacted in rage to the Jewish people among them.
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  2. Tax says:
    Mr. Obama, please STOP giving racist organizations like ADL tax breaks!
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  3. Shunra says:
    So, uh, does this shed any light on whether the prefix “neo” in “neocon” is actually another lie?
    I had no idea about the ADL’s activities.
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    • demize says:
      That’s a good point. Do you mean were they merely acted as informants while leaving untouched their fellow Trotskyites and nominal communists at CCNY?  Horowitz was informing on the Black Panther Party. I don’t see people so dramatically realigning their Political ethos as they have been purported to have done.
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  4. Nevada Ned says:
    Thanks, Jeffrey Blankfort, for your excellent hidden history of the ADL. There’s more!
    After Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi publicly whitewashed Mussolini’s fascist regime, the ADL gave Berlusconi an award (!!), the Distinguished Statesman Award. Why? Because under Berlusconi, Italy was a close ally of Israel. [Source: Norman Finkelstein's eye-opening book Beyond Chutzpah] The take-home lesson here is that the ADL hasn’t been a civil-rights organization for a very long time. Instead, it’s part of the Israel Lobby.

     Here’s the way the game is played: someone criticizes Israel. The ADL then blasts the critic for anti-Semitism, a serious charge (if true). Thus the ADL spends much of its time in defaming critics of Israel. The ADL tried this on Walt and Mearsheimer, but without success.
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    • PG says:
      The ADL then blasts the critic for anti-Semitism, a serious charge (if true).
      What makes the charge of “antisemitism” “a serious charge (if true),” NevadaNed?
      Who gets to define what antisemitism is; who gets to decide whether the charge is true or false; and underlying those steps, why do Jewish people get special treatment and special protections beyond any other group in the US or, given the worldwide portfolio of the State Dept. office of antisemitism, in the whole world? Why do Jews get special treatment, and why are Jews the legislators, judge, and jury on how their privileged treatment is carried out?
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  5. hophmi says:
    I have written to the ADL to express my opposition to their position on this issue. The press release does clearly mention that its position is based on the views expressed by the 9/11 families, not on any particular argument made by the bigots opposing the center.

    Jeff Blankfort back-of-the-envelope history is predictably ridiculous, omitting the ADL’s long history of civil rights activism.
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    • Jeffrey Blankfort says:
      Perhaps, you don’t think the struggle against the HUAC and McCarthyist witch hunts was a civil rights matter. Sure, they backed up the black civil rights movement, that part of which was not militant, but they were spying on every other civil rights group such as the NAACP, the Japanese-American Citizens League, La Raza Unida, the Asian-Law Caucus, and all the solidarity groups for Central America and the Philippines. To tell you the truth, I have been active in the civil rights movement before there was one and I never saw hide nor air of the ADL until its spy infiltrated our Labor Committee on the Middle East.

      I was fortunate enough to get a copy of at least part of its spy’s file on me, which was sent by the ADL to both Israel and South Africa, and after 10 years, received a paid settlement from the organization without agreeing to sign a “confidentiality agreement.”

      In other words, that I can talk about what we learned from the depositions and evidence I am free to talk about which is why when the listeners to my radio program on a public radio station complain to the ADL about me, they are told simply “to monitor” my programs, since it is not about to take any action against me.

      A few years back, I was on a panel with two other anti-Zionist Jews at KPFK in Los Angeles where we were supposed to debate three full blown zionists, one of them from the ADL, who pulled out at the last minute without sending a replacement. It was too bad but smart on the ADL’s part because I had a large file from our case that I was going to ask its representative about, beginning with its spy’s work for the South African apartheid regime and why he had not only the key but the floor plan to the office of Alex Odeh, the head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Orange County who was killed when a Jewish terrorist blew up the office.

      When it has come to “civil rights,” there has been only one litmus test for the ADL and for other mainstream Jewish organizations, “Is it good for the Jews.”

      So why the ADL has actively opposed “affirmative action” for African-Americans because, they say, it presupposes quotas which once negatively affected Jews, they buy off black politicians and preachers so they will keep quiet about it. It is all for immigration reform benefiting Latinos, not just because it offers them a chance to hire a cheap nanny or gardener, but because it, like the American Jewish Committee, has been actively wooing the growing numbers of Latino voters because that would be in Israel’s benefit.

      In fact, ADL has a special department for Hispanic Affairs, and like the Congressional Black/House Negro Caucus, all of its members of the Latino Caucus in Congress are in the Israel Lobby’s pocket. It has been so successful that there is not a single well known Latino leader who speaks critically of Israel. Next question?
       
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      • Mooser says:
        Well done, both the article, and this little addendum. If that’s the word I want.
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      • hophmi says:
        Jeffrey,

        The ADL has not “actively opposed” affirmative action. It filed a brief in favor of Bakke. It has been on the side of affirmative action proponents in virtually every other case, the latest being the brief filed in favor of Bollinger in Grutter v. Bollinger, as I pointed out the last time you made this nonsensical argument. Just about everybody I know at both organizations supports affirmative action, a policy, needless to say, which does not benefit Jews in any meaningful way today and in all honesty, probably hurts them. What you say is just complete and utter bullshit, the absolute opposite of the truth.

         No reasonable person would conflate opposing racial quotas with being against affirmative action. It is propaganda on your part, nothing more.
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        • Jeffrey Blankfort says:
          The ADL has consistently opposed affirmative action beginning with Bakke and for those who wish to see the record, just Google “ADL+affirmative action.”

          As for Grutter vs Bollinger, this is how one site summed up ADL’s position:
          “Anti-Defamation League (Gratz & Grutter)
          While supporting the University’s commitment to diversity, ADL believes the University’s admissions scheme denies prospective students equal protection by emphasizing their race, and not relevant individual characteristics.”

          The American Jewish Committee, the state department of the Jewish establishment which focuses on outreach to the African-American and Latino communities took a supportive position.

          I have not made any claims that apply to the organized Jewish establishments. They are dedicated to doing what is best, or what they think is best for Jews, and that is the criteria for their inter-group and inter-faith relations, the latter being used to make non-Jews feel guilty for not having done more to save Jews during WW 2, an argument that has grown more than a bit tiresome and was never valid to begin with.

          Jews, as individuals, have played important roles in major political and social struggles that we have seen in America, although at a declining rate since the founding of the state of Israel. Hophmi, it appears, is not one of them.

          Rather he/she/it is clearly one of those Jews who has answered the call from the big machas of the Zionist International to get on websites and do their hasbara schtick.
  6. demize says:
    Jeffrey I. Read your recent piece on Finklstein’s position vis a vis single state, two state with great interest. This just confirms what I was saying regarding Police and their use of and interchangability with reactionary criminal elements in another thread. ADL has been repugnant for some time, this is them jumping the shark so to speak.
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  7. SkepticalHumanist says:
    The ADL made a huge mistake on the “9/11 Cultural Center” issue. It truly stuns me-not that I would put this past the ADL- that they could make such a major strategic error without realizing the potentially self-undermining consequences it may trigger. Zionists seem to realize their cause is crumbling enough with Israels actions (hence the increasingly rabid and belligerent rhetoric/slander). Now the key organizations granting Israel legitimacy has revealed itself a lobby group of bigotry in its stealth slander (by implication) of Muslims.
    For the life of me, I just can’t figure out the motivation for that press release, or the fact that given the outrage, even from hasbara kooks like Jeffrey Goldberg, that the press release has not been deleted or modified in any way.
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  8. Colin Murray says:
    So essentially the ADL has become a privately-owned political intelligence agency in the service of a foreign power. I grew up thinking the the ACLU and ADL were the ‘good guys’.
    I had thought they merely became corrupt. I like to think of myself as a realist, but ‘reality’ keeps on being worse than I had guessed. Does that make me an optimist? :)
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    • Avi says:
      When I made the comment a few days ago about the ADL being another tentacle of the AIPAC octopus, I thought that this was common knowledge.

      Lo and behold, it turns out my comment could have easily been viewed by many as sensationalist exaggeration, given the unfamiliarity with ADL’s history.

      This isn’t directed at you, Colin. It’s just that your post reminded me of several others of similar nature.

      By the way, it’s good to see you posting again. That’s some hiatus you’ve been on.
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  9. lysias says:
    Is it only in the service of that foreign power, or is it also in the service of the powers that be in this country? (If the latter, that would help to explain why it is treated so reverentially by the media.)
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  10. Zorro says:
    FTA:”In the anti-communist witch hunts conducted at the beginning of the Cold War, the ADL assisted and acted as a go-between for both the Congressional committees and members or former members of the CPUSA who chose to inform on their former comrades and friends, including, in at least one instance, family members.”

    I wonder how this will play in Hollywood? Their therapists will be working overtime this week.
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  11. Eva Smagacz says:
    I smiled at this paragraph in Washington Post (amusing bit in italics): “The nation’s leading Jewish civil rights group opposes the planned mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero, saying more information is needed about funding for the project and the location is “counterproductive to the healing process.”

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  12. Rowan says:

    Jeff’s dates suggest that this collaboration against the anti-apartheid ‘communists’ went on until about the time the Soviet Union collapsed, at the end of 1991. It would have undermined the ADL’s anti-racist facade completely if it had been allowed to become widely known. The alliance between center-left (or left-liberal) US jews and black rights activists in the US broke down in the late 1960s at least partly because of israel’s collaboration with apartheid south africa.
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    • hophmi says:
      “The alliance between center-left (or left-liberal) US jews and black rights activists in the US broke down in the late 1960s at least partly because of israel’s collaboration with apartheid south africa.”

      A very little part, since there was virtually no Israel-South African collaboration at that point. There are many reasons why the Black-Jewish alliance broke down and plenty of blame to go around, but South Africa does not have much to do with it.
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  13. Richard Witty says:
    Hatchets in response to hatchets.
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    • Mooser says:
      Yes, Witty, the Zionist-Israeli response toward all attempts at moderation or even a simple lessening of intransigence has been pathetic, and much worse. I’m glad you finally recognise it.

      Hatchets haven’t got a chance against white phosphorus or nuclear bombs.
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  14. Jeffrey Blankfort says:
    The actions of the ADL in keeping a watchful eye on anti-apartheid activists and South African exiles was in keeping with an overall plan on the part of the American Jewish establishment to suppress any criticism of Israel’s ties with South Africa which were much more extensive than what was known at the time or since until see Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s recent: The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relations with Apartheid South Africa.

    What was also a part of that and critically important was a deal made in 1973 between former American Jewish Congress head Arthur Hertzberg and Rep. Charles Rangel in which the Congressional Black Caucus (which more accurately should be called the House Negro Caucus) would continue supporting without question US aid for Israel (which would also come to mean not publicly complaining about Israel’s arm sales to South Africa) in exchange for the Jewish establishment’s backing of the CBC’s domestic agenda.

    The CBC/HNC kept its side of the bargain to its everlasting discredit while there should be little doubt but that the way those welfare programs were designed and administrated has been ultimately detrimental to the larger African-American community.

    On the the other hand those House Negroes who agreed to take their marching orders from AIPAC invariably found the funding and critical political backing to maintain their seats.

    There were a number who didn’t, the most notable being Cynthia McKinney. They were all eventually driven from office. That Rangel is now threatened with being driven from office himself thanks to his other criminal activities seems an altogether fitting end to his career.
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    • LanceThruster says:
      I had often wondered about the rationale for Israeli support of South Africa and its apartheid policies.

      In a sense, much like many of our conventional wars, they were a proving ground for the tactics and technology of oppression. Wasn’t South Africa the largest purchaser of weaponry from Israel, particularly due to sales restrictions imposed by other countries? There is also much written about cooperative efforts in chemical, genetic, and bio-warfare.

      Great piece, Jeffrey. Thank you for your continued efforts in providing accurate background and uncovering the truth.
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  15. Mooser says:
    “Oy, there’s a new discourse a comin’
    Comin’ down the rail-road track,
    Oy, there’s a new-kind discourse comin’
    Comin’ down the rail-road track!
    It’s that anti-Zionist Special,
    Runnin’ down those zio-hacks….”

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  16. hayate says:
    Jeffrey Blankfort
    Thanks for that piece and the follow up. I didn’t know of the adl’s collaboration with the anti-commie goons of that earlier period, before WW2 and during the mccarthy witch hunts.
  17. Les says:
    What a different world it would be if the media turned to you for the history of the ADL. Being Jewish makes you doubly disqualified.
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  18. rachelgolem says:
    Israel may be the new South Africa,
    but South Africa will soon be the new Zimbabwe.
    And Iraq will soon be the new Cambodia.
  19. Avi says:
    And through it all, most “Zionists” will still have a nice, warm comfortable home to sleep in.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Irish Republicanism: The Continuity.


The Continuity. (Anonymous)
The struggle of the IRA or CIRA  and RIRA may be more sporadic but I do hope that whatever happens will allow for the final end of colonialism.  IRA has done far too much not simply for Ireland but to assist others in their national struggles for me to not feel great affinity with them. And if ever I have sons I hope they are the men that so many of those men have been. So as not to be sexist, ditto with daughters.

British occupation has been worn down over the years. Todya 2/3 of the country surrendered by Britain forms today's Republic of Ireland.  There is some governmental representation by the Irish (Catholic) population in the British occupation government. There is continued outflow of the Irish and Northern Irish population into England (and other locales).  Even with all the poverty and social ills that come with continued occupation, there has been progress over the centuries for Ireland and its revolutionaries.  Continued commitment is a moral one rather than simply the current conditions that make me a continued supporter of CIRA, RIRA, IRA and Sinn Fein, etc.

The danger (and thus in my opinion the need for continued militancy) is to maintain the program and particular values that have been part of the independence movement.  Irish revolution still aims to prevent Ireland from becoming independent in name but with none of the social and national platform and values, and just another region choking on debt and led by the dictates of the EU and multinationals (based in more powerful states). This militancy may require the continuation of the armed struggle.  But what of peace?  I don't see peace as simply the absence of physical violence but also the conditions that cause people to need to use physical violence to obtain justice.

When the Continuity snipers sent those two UK soldiers home in body bags a few months ago, I could not be opposed to that. It was all the more morally justified, actually morally imperative as one of the soldiers was an immigrant (from the Middle East) who was foolish enough to volunteer as an occupying soldier for the UK in NI.


In this on going struggle, I also see cannot entirely despise  the Protestants resident in Northern Ireland. Undoubtedly they have been (willing) pawns in the same way that the Irish were used to serve imperialism overseas. But then, I even have (amoral) respect for imperialism itself, even when I find it morally repugnant.

The sentiment "Croppies Lie Down", and the Ulsterman (Protestant) perspective is one of domination, direct and straightforward. There is no lying in them at least, which is more than one can say of most modern imperialism which hides behind ridiculous justifications. Towards those who are direct about what they are doing, and do it for themselves I have a modicum of respect, at least more than I do toward those who operate or use others as willing tools of oppression or those who flee in the face of their own struggle. 

The Roman Church has hardly been a friend to Ireland's cause. (It has done far more for the former Irish who immigrated.) Catholicism in Ireland is said to have long been in terminal decline, for good or bad (and I suspect mostly bad). My point here is that the Catholic/ Protestant divide is really a misnomer, or an easy way to track what is a fight between native Irish (who happened to have been historically primarily Catholic) and the settlers, chiefly lowland, Anglo Scots and English from the border country and of course the English elite who by religion were Protestant. (Sometimes Americans get confused with the names, etc.) But it is chiefly an ethnic incursion and colonial or neo-colonial occupation.

So Ulstermen who are killed are fair game but when someone like that British soldier, Sapper Azimkar is shot, I envy the sniper. My only concern is for the sniper and his family and the fear that he will be apprehended.

There is another reason I can't gather the energy to truly despise Ulstermen. Anglo Saxon ethnocentrism seems almost quaint today. (Anglo-Saxon can barely maintain themselves and their identity in England today much less dominate others; their day has apparently come and gone.) Besides, the 'Protestant' population in Northern Ireland numbers under a million people; how many Irish live in England today?

Probably confusing the issue more is that the Irish by circumstance have become Anglicized over the centuries of occupation. In ways it mirrors American slavery (though not as cruel or thorough), people adopted the culture of dominant group both by imposition and because of the benefits that came with assimilation. With so many incursions even the ethnic Irish may be a product of homogeneity. The physical stamp of the English in Ireland is defining and indelible. There is no Derry today without the English- it is part of the original execution of the Ulster Plantation. Most of the cities of Ireland are creations of the English (and earlier the Norman and Norse invasions). Irish institutions also have colonial origins.

Yet the Irish people remain, clinging to their identity and perspective. To me that speaks to a heroic persistence. The work to reconstruct and often to re-imagine and reinvent Irish culture where it was irretrievably lost is an interesting topic in itself. And beyond that, as a rule the people of Ireland have been indefatigable in their support of others who face imperialism.

The global political climate seems against the social aims of the IRA. Lest we forget, the US helped fund British imperialism in Ireland in the last century in no small part out of the interest in studying low intensity conflict, so this is only a change of degrees. Relatively speaking, NI is a small plot of land of limited economic value, and a small population; perhaps outsiders will become disinterested. Frankly neither Irish nor the Ulster nationalism are of any value outside of NI in the new order.

Those who are the Irish people have bravely stood their ground in their land, and fought, survived and even flourished for 500 plus years, so I think they can stick out a few more years to get the remainder of their island and have the real self-determination and the desired social justice in it that eludes so many less powerful nations in this age. Yet history says it will likely be a struggle. Til then, God Bless the (C/R)IRA.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanandjon/10094904/lightbox/