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How and Why Democracy is Failing Us Badly
Seven Billion Cheers for Direct Democracy
…by Moti Nissani, Phd., Prof. Emeritus, Wayne State University
Summary: Real (or direct) democracy provides the least-flawed way of governing countries, reform organizations, and institutions. In a real democracy, the people themselves make all major political, legal, and judicial decisions. To objectively evaluate the overwhelming evidence in favor of real democracy, we must overcome at least three conceptual barriers. Editing: Jim W. Dean
What can still be borrowed from the Athenians?
A few highlights of ancient Athenian democracy show that Athens was far better governed than any contemporary “democracies.”
Two recent referenda forcefully show that real democracy is just as effective in the contemporary world as it had been in ancient Greece.
Revolutionary strategists must ask themselves: How can we best structure our own movement?
And: What kind of political framework should we aim for, once we relegate the Banking-Militarist Complex to the dustbin of history?
The answer to both questions is the same: genuine (or direct) democracy.
Democracy, for the Greeks who coined the word, meant “power of the people” or “rule of the people.” Perhaps the best-known example of a genuine democracy in a highly-advanced, highly-literate, polity, is Athens and its sister democracies of Ancient Greece.
There, all significant political, legal, and judicial decisions were made directly by the people. Democratic Athens went to war if, and only if, the majority so voted; a man was exiled, or condemned to death, if, and only if, his fellow citizens so decreed.
The USA, Britain, France—even better-governed Norway and Iceland—might or might not have free elections, but they are not democracies. As a result, in the USA, even when elections are not rigged, once in power, the winners routinely defy voters’ sentiments.
Thus, for instance, most Americans did not wish go to war in 1917, were opposed to the colonization and pulverization of Iraq, and have never been in favor of their country’s ongoing program of biospheric carnage. But in a “democracy,” American style, the majority’s preferences are routinely ignored.
Eduardo Galleano whimsically captures the essence of contemporary “democracies:”
Eduardo Galeano
“The other day, I heard about a cook who organized a meeting of birds—chickens, geese, turkeys, peasants, and ducks. And I heard what the cook told them. The cook asked them with what sauce they would like to be cooked. One of the birds, I think it was a humble chicken, said:
“We don’t want to be cooked in whichever way.” And the cook explained that “this topic was not on the agenda.”
It seems to me interesting, that meeting, for it is a metaphor for the world. The world is organized in such a way that we have the right to choose the sauce in which we shall be eaten.” [my translation] … Juan O’Gorman, Enemies of the Mexican People
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Conceptual Barriers Against Genuine Democracy
Our task is not simply proving the superiority of genuine democracy to all other known political systems, but also letting go of ingrained prejudices.
Barrier 1: Cradle-to-Grave Propaganda System. Genuine democracy—along with compassion and rationality—pose the greatest threat to the enemies of the open society. No wonder then that since infancy we have been inculcated against it. We have been lied to incessantly about the virtues of the Roman republic on the one hand, and about the horrors of Greek “mob rule” on the other hand.
Barrier 2: Opposition of Intellectuals. Throughout the ages, genuine democracy has been laughed at by self-serving, brilliant, oligarchs. A historian of Ancient Greece, writing in 1900, remarks that “few sights are stranger” than the spectacle of some Athenian intellectuals and first-rate thinkers “turning their eyes from their own free country to regard with admiration the constitution of Sparta,” where a free thinker “would not have been suffered so much as to open his mouth.”
The self-serving falsification of the historical record continues to this very day. Karl Popper:
“The history of the Peloponnesian war and the fall of Athens is still often told, under the influence of Thucydides’ authority, in such a way that the defeat of Athens appears as the ultimate proof of the dangerous weaknesses of the democratic system. But this view is merely a tendentious distortion, and the well-known facts tell a very different story.
The main responsibility for the lost war rests with the treacherous oligarchs who continuously conspired with Sparta. . . . The fall of Athens, and the destruction of the walls, are often presented as the final results of the great war which had started in 431 B.C. But in this presentation lies the main distortion, for the democrats fought on.
At first only seventy strong, they prepared under the leadership of Thrasybulus and Anytus the liberation of Athens, where Critias was meanwhile killing scores of citizens; for during the eight months of his reign of terror the death-role contained nearly a greater number of Athenians than the Peloponnesians had killed during the last ten years of war.”
“But after eight months (in 403 B.C.) Critias and the Spartan garrison were attacked and defeated by the democrats who established themselves in the Piraeus, and both of Plato’s uncles lost their lives in the battle. Their oligarchic followers continued for a time the reign of terror in the city of Athens itself, but their forces were in a state of confusion and dissolution.
Having proved themselves incapable of ruling, they were ultimately abandoned by their Spartan protectors, who concluded a treaty with the democrats. The peace re-established the democracy in Athens. Thus the democratic form of government had proved its superior strength under the most severe trials, and even its enemies began to think it invincible.”
Moreover, the writings of the enemies of democracy have been deliberately preserved, while the writings of the friends of democracies, from Democritus to Thomas Paine to Subcomandante Marcos to Gerald Celente, have been incinerated or ignored by the powers that be. We are thus left with the impression that most creative thinkers have been opposed to genuine democracy.
Barrier 3: The Ruling Faction of America’s Revolutionaries was thoroughly Anti-Democratic.
For Americans, there is still one more conceptual barrier to acceptance of genuine democracy. Some founding fathers were genuine democrats, but the winning faction falsely (and self-servingly) equated democracy with mob rule.
Americans are taught to admire the revolutionary founders of their republic. Americans are not, however, often reminded how averse some of these founders were to the Bill of Rights, how they proceeded to betray their countrymen by establishing the Rothschild-controlled First Bank of the United States.
Most of us have forgotten, or never knew how brutally suppressed popular uprisings, and how close they came, during the Adams presidency, to establishing a dictatorship.
These betrayals have been glossed over by the official record, so Americans find it hard to believe that such courageous, principled, and brilliant men chose a second-best political system for their contemporaries and descendants.
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Athenian Democracy
Some of the advantages of genuine democracy are immediately apparent. Unlike contemporary western republics, in Athens promises to the people could not be as readily broken, for the people were always in charge. Influential Athenians (especially the oligarchic variety) were just as bribable as their contemporary western counterparts, but in a system where real power, at any given moment, resided with the citizenry, the damage was more limited.
The information system in Athens was never taken over by the oligarchs. Athenians breathed cleaner air, drank chemical-free water, and ploughed healthier soils for their sustenance; their schools were private (not state-run), and they exercised daily; they were thus in better mental and physical shape than contemporary Americans.
Hence, in Athens, human beings came close to their truer intellectual, artistic, and civic potential. In a genuine democracy like Athens, dissident organizations could not be readily co-opted, elections and trials could not be as readily rigged, and politically-motivated assassinations were rare.
Overall, the Athenian system served the public interest far better than American oligarchy.
The ancient Greeks recognized the link between genuine democracy and greatness. The historian Herodotus, himself not an Athenian, clearly perceived the causal connection between freedom and excellence.
“Thus did the Athenians increase in strength. And it is plain enough, not from this instance only, but from many everywhere, that freedom is an excellent thing; since even the Athenians, who, while they continued under the rule of tyrants, were not a whit more valiant than any of their neighbors, no sooner shook off the yoke than they became decidedly the first of all.
These things show that while undergoing oppression they let themselves be beaten since then they worked for a master; but as soon as they got their freedom, each man was eager to do the best he could for himself. So fared it now with the Athenians.”
Funeral Oration – Pericles
Pericles, an influential Athenian before and during the Peloponnesian War, put it this way:
“Our political system does not compete with institutions which are elsewhere in force. We do not copy our neighbors, but try to be an example. Our administration favors the many instead of the few: this is why it is called a democracy.
The laws afford equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, but we do not ignore the claims of excellence. When a citizen distinguishes himself, then he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as a reward of merit; and poverty is no bar. . . The freedom we enjoy extends also to ordinary life; we are not suspicious of one another, and do not feel called upon to nag our neighbor if he chooses to go his own way. . .
But this freedom does not make us lawless. We are taught to respect the magistrates and the laws, and never to forget that we must protect the injured. And we are also taught to observe those unwritten laws whose sanction lies only in the universal feeling of what is right. . .”
“Our city is thrown open to the world; we never expel a foreigner. . . We are free to live exactly as we please, and yet are always ready to face any danger. . . We love beauty without becoming extravagant, and we cultivate the intellect without lessening our resolution. . . To admit one’s poverty is no disgrace with us; but we consider it disgraceful not to make an effort to avoid it.
An Athenian citizen does not neglect public affairs when attending to his private business. . . We consider a man who takes no interest in the state not as harmless, but as useless; and although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it. We do not look upon discussion as a stumbling block in the way of political action, but as an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. . .
We believe that happiness is the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, and we do not shrink from the danger of war. . . To sum up, I claim that Athens is the School of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian grows up to a happy versatility and to a readiness for varied emergencies—to self-reliance.”
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Unlike the United States, which has always fostered oligarchic governments in its empire, the Athenians fostered genuine democracies in theirs.
Athenian lawmakers understood human weaknesses, and they knew from bitter experience how bribery could undermine justice. Obviously, it is easier to bribe, and deform a passion for justice in, a judge than a jury, and hence, all trials were by a jury of one’s peers alone.
The people, not paid experts, were deemed most qualified to decide judicial cases. There was no presiding judge telling people that their task was to serve an abstract law (as opposed to simple justice).
Nor was there a jury-free appeal system, which often, in America, nullifies the people’s verdict.
But Athenian juries were definitely corruptible too; to circumvent that problem, juries in important cases were randomly selected from the entire citizen body and numbered 500 or more (roughly 2.5% or more of the total number of citizens).
Often the caseload was too heavy, and so the number of jurors for each particular trial was reduced to fifty.
Now, a rich man might try to bribe all fifty, so the legal system placed a safeguard against that eventuality: The decision as to which 50 jurors of the 500 would be assigned to any given case was made by lottery, just before the trial began.
The Athenians knew that power-seekers could not be trusted, so they filled many important public offices by lot. Moreover, most office holders maintained their positions for extremely short durations. Athens thereby bypassed, to a certain extent, a key problem in all other extant political systems: The ascendancy of the psychopaths.
The Athenians did not give their rich people tax cuts, thereby leading to an ever-growing mal-distribution of wealth. Athenians respected private property and wealth, but expected their leisure class to make greater contributions to the public, by sponsoring musical festivals or dramas (another Greek word), for example.
When the majority decided to go to war, the rich had to risk their lives too. Moreover, in times of war, each rich man was expected to contribute one battleship to the navy of the city—that is where our word liturgy (public service; literally, a public building) came from.
The contemporary decline of republics like the USA or Italy can be explained in part by their system of banking and money creation. In these republics, the bankers in charge of money creation try to fabricate the impression that the private, for-profit, central banks are under public control.
Our Banksters
Witness for example the names they choose for their key institutions—Bank for International Settlements, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Federal Reserve, Bank of England, First Bank of the United States.
In reality, these institutions are controlled by a few banking families.
The politicians, media, the bought economic profession, pretend that these privately-controlled institutions serve the public interest, but the reality is the exact opposite:
The only goal of these institutions is to further enrich and empower their owners, and they can only accomplish these goals by impoverishing and enslaving the vast majority.
These institutions do not serve a nation—they parasitize it. They are worse than the black plague, because they never go away. Instead, they steadily, mercilessly, and incessantly devour their host. They are, by far, public enemy number one.
This, along with the fraudulent fractional reserve system, permits the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the banking octopus and its military, academic, drug, death squads, industry, health, farming, and mining tentacles.
It also permits destructive and deliberate manipulations of the money supply, and the devastating boom-and-bust economic cycles which further enrich and empower a few banking families and enslave the public at large.
I shall have more to say about this banking plague elsewhere, but for the moment let me just say this: If I were forced to choose between the current rule of bankers, on one hand, or the rule of the Mafia, on the other, I’d choose the Mafia, any day, any time.
The Athenians, by contrast, did not have that parasitic fifth-column in their midst. They had access to plenty of silver in their own national territory, and the state (not private interests) issued the national silver or copper currency.
The state did not accumulate debt as a matter of course, did not suffer the depredations of fractional reserve money creation, nor planned booms and busts. The Athenians thus avoided the horrors of a bankers-dominated economic and political system.
Another salient feature of Athenian democracy involved ostracism (their word). Athenian democrats well knew that their worst enemies were the oligarchs within their own walls. In rare cases, these traitors were brought to trial and executed.
But the Athenians did try to live up to their ideal of moderation.
Athenians aspired to perfect their democracy, while America goes in the opposite direction. Can you imagine an Athenian court passing a law that allowed Persian, or Spartan for that matter, campaign funding in Athenian elections because a corporation was a ‘person’?
Individuals who were deemed a threat to the democracy were selected by an anonymous vote of the assembly and ordered to leave the city for ten years.
They retained their citizenship and possessions but were required to remain in exile. By law, only one person could be ostracized in any given year. As a matter of historical record, though, ostracism was rarely applied.
The remarkable political maturity, compassion, and tolerance of a free people can perhaps be best captured through two specific historical examples.
The first involves post-war reconciliation.
A contemporary legal scholar holds that the first well-documented example of a “self-conscious transitional justice policy is provided by the classical Athenians’ response to atrocities committed during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants . . . The Athenians carefully balanced retribution and forgiveness . . . remembering and forgetting.”
Another historian comments on the same historical occurrence:
“In 404 BCE the Peloponnesian War finally came to an end, when the Athenians, starved into submission, were forced to accept Sparta’s terms of surrender. Shortly afterwards a group of thirty conspirators, with Spartan backing (“the Thirty”), overthrew the democracy and established a narrow oligarchy.
Although the oligarchs were in power for only thirteen months, they killed more than 5 percent of the citizenry and terrorized the rest by confiscating the property of some and banishing many others.
Despite this brutality, members of the democratic resistance movement that regained control of Athens came to terms with the oligarchs and agreed to an amnesty that protected collaborators from prosecution for all but the most severe crimes.”
Does this exceptional act of amnesty (their word) and forgiveness sound like mob rule?
Another touching example of Athenian greatness, of compassion in the midst of a struggle for national and personal survival, is related by Thucydides:
“Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos [a Greek island], except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians. . . . However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war that had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a serious matter to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources to the list of their enemies; and at first would not believe the charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it might not be true. But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the Mitylenians to give up the union and preparations complained of, they became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow.”
After a prolonged siege, the Athenians prevailed, and, at first, the assembly sent a trireme with the order to execute all the men of the rebellious island, and to enslave the women and children. The following day the assembly reconvened, and narrowly voted to overturn the first vote, and spare the lives of most Lesbians:
“Another galley was at once sent off in haste, for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in the interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about a day and a night’s start. Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the vessel by the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if they arrived in time; which caused the men to use such diligence upon the voyage that they took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded with oil and wine as they rowed, and only slept by turns while the others were at the oar.
Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little before them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree, and to prepare to execute the sentence, when the second put into port and prevented the massacre. The danger of Mitylene had indeed been great.”
Ask yourself: Have the Roman or American republics just once behaved thus? And if not, isn’t it high time that we reclaim as our own a political system capable of such wartime wisdom and compassion?
Other Key Features of Athenian Democracy were:
· Near economic self-sufficiency of the average household
· A genuine free enterprise system (largely absent in modern so-called capitalist societies)
· A less materialistic world view
· A small state
· Minimal taxation in times of peace
· Involvement of the majority in civic affairs
Athens was certainly no utopia. Slavery was widespread and neither women nor foreigners enjoyed the full franchise. The Athenian Empire often exploited and lorded over its member states, at times brutally and even cynically suppressing defections.
Influential Athenians were eminently bribable and often betrayed their city. Athenians seemed unable to conceive of a genuine union, on equal terms, with sister democracies, and were thus, in the end, enslaved by the Macedonian dictatorship.
But Athens, I believe, still provides the best starting point for a free, rational, and compassionate society. We can copy its basic framework of genuine democracy, while avoiding its major weaknesses.
Two Modern Examples of Genuine Democracy in Action
In some contemporary republics, on rare occasions, the people are allowed to decide an issue directly (through a referendum), without massive rigging. In such rare democratic outbursts, the people often vote wisely. Here are two examples.
The Italian Demos vs. Nuclear Power
We have been warned about the menace of atomic energy right from the beginning of the nuclear age. Many years later, in 1977, for instance, Ralph Nader and John Abbot wrote:
“What technology has had the potential for both inadvertent and willful mass destruction . . . for wiping out cities and contaminating states after an accident, a natural calamity, or sabotage? What technology has been so unnecessary, so avoidable by simple thrift or by deployment of renewable energy supplies?”
When the decision is left to the psychopaths, they of course choose short-term gains and empowerment, even though a nuclear power plant may consume more energy than it produces!
After them, they might think, is the deluge. But when the people are allowed to decide, they often make the right decision, the bankers’ propaganda avalanche notwithstanding:
“Italy is a nuclear free zone since the Italian nuclear power referendum of November 1987. Following center-right parties’ victory in the 2008 election, Italy’s industry minister announced that the government scheduled the construction to start the first new Italian nuclear-powered plant by 2013.
The announced project was paused in March 2011, after the Japanese earthquake, and scrapped after a referendum on 12–13 June 2011.”
The Icelandic Demos vs. the International Bankers
The global economic crisis is now in its fourth year, and, the propaganda system notwithstanding, the situation is getting steadily worse.
Real unemployment is nearing levels of the great depression while the middle class is steadily losing ground.
Given the growing misery of the American people, one would think that the USA would stop its extremely costly wars of aggression, yet the United States is spending now even more on killing innocents abroad.
One would think that the USA would dismantle its extremely costly police state apparatus, but the bankers and their puppets are actually spending more money on subjugating and humiliating the American people.
One would think that, in such hard times, greater income equality would be attempted, but in fact the gap between the rich and poor has grown by leaps and bounds from 2008 to 2012.
Iceland President – Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson
One would think that the DC mafia would permit the bankruptcy of the international banks that caused the crisis to begin with, and which, moreover, according to this mafia’s self-professed capitalist (let alone Christian) ideology, are too big to exist.
But just the opposite is taking place: to prevent the deserved bankruptcy of these banks, our politicians (that is, the big bankers themselves or their pawns) have robbed the American people of trillions.
Consequently, the economic hard times will continue unabated, or grow far worse, for years and years.
As of June 2012, there has been only one exception to this sad tale of gargantuan theft—Iceland. There, thanks to an inordinately courageous and decent president, the people were allowed to decide their fate, twice, despite the strenuous opposition of the international bankers.
“These were private banks,” said Iceland’s president, “and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.”
The people voted and, consequently, Iceland is now in far better economic shape than countries such as Greece, Spain, or the USA. In Iceland, too, some bankers actually ended up paying for their crimes, and the country has, in the wake of the crisis, moved in a more democratic direction. The people of Iceland:
“…took a different path than the United States after their financial crisis and nationalized the banks, threw some the people responsible for the crash in jail, and bailed out the homeowners instead of worrying about only bailing out the banks. And now they’re coming back and their economy is growing again.”
Even the corporate press, on the rare occasions when it covers the Icelandic story, underscores the fabulous potential of genuine democracy:
“Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger. Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population . . .
The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average . . . The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values.
On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses. . . . Iceland’s $13 billion economy, which shrank 6.7 percent in 2009, grew 2.9 percent last year and will expand 2.4 percent this year and next . . . The euro area will grow 0.2 percent this year and the OECD area will expand 1.6 percent, according to November estimates. . . .
Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn. Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch.
The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.
Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges. . . . That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown.”
Closing Remarks
It is no accident that, when given a choice, the Italian people rejected nuclear power, despite massive false advertising by the moneylenders.
It is no accident that, as of June 2012, the only country with any chance of escaping serfdom, Iceland, was able to do so through a referendum, despite massive false advertising by the moneylenders.
What worked so well for the Ancient Athenians is obviously working just as well for any country choosing to give genuine democracy a chance.
Editing: Jim W. Dean
Appendix: Direct Democracy Organizations and Websites: 1. U.K.: http://www.freedemocrats.co.uk/index_info.htm. 2. U.S: http://ncid.us
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Thanks for a very interesting comment, offering a different perspective. Allow me to respond to three points.
First, I do not claim that the Greeks invented democracy. Rather, democracy was humanity’s natural state throughout most of its history. I chose the Athenian model because we know so much about it, because it was so astoundingly successful, and because it is so much easier for westerners like myself to identify with it.
Second point relates to this view: “The white race has been deliberately ‘cut off’ from its ancestral religion of Hinduism, which was practiced across prehistoric Europe for thousands of years before the rise of Christianity. As a result, whites in the world have ‘lost their Path’ and forgotten ‘who they are’ spiritually, discarding introspection in their wild pursuit of money and material possessions.” I lived in a Hindu Country for a year, and prefer, by far, Christianity or Buddhism to Hinduism (although I’m a skeptical eclectic, when it comes to religion). This great religion, for example, puts widows on pyres. Compare this to Chirst’s saying “let him who is without sin cast the first stone”! Hinduism has a caste system, which is still in force in many parts of India, and which relegates a vast number of people a second-rate existence. Christ and Buddha and Democritus, on the other hand, believed in the essential equality of all people. What is more, Hinduism is an exclusivist religion–you must be born into it to be a real Hindu. Read for instance Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora. Both Christ and Buddha teach spirituality, and Christ insists that you can’t serve two masters. The most important Indian epic, the Mahabharata is about the warrior class, and there is not even a whiff of democracy in the entire work (which, on the other hand, is superior literature, in my view, to Homer’s Iliad). For instance, in one scene I vaguely remember, a person has to obey his guru, regardless of how cruel and idiotic the guru’s command is. And then look at the real India, the one that actually exists, not the myth. Look at the intolerance towards Muslims, at the great massacres that took place there and still going on now. Just read a bit of Arundhati Roy’s writing, to dispel any notion of Hinduism’s inherent superiority or its intrinsic spirituality. Hinduism has this to recommend it: A perfect tool of controlling the masses. No one surpassed the Indian master class’s ingenuity: You convince people that they deserve to go hungry and barefoot and being treated like trash, and that if they obey their masters, the next time around they might actually rise to the level of the masters themselves! I spent a few days in a Brahmin village, and here is a scene I shall never forget: The Brahmins enjoying themselves, while the untouchable hungry—and very competent–musicians are treated as if they are not full-fledged members of the human family.
I found the parallels to Abraham and Sarah fascinating. Thanks. If true, it indeed suggests a connection between Western and Eastern religion that I was not aware of. I plan to look this matter up when I get a chance.
Democracy is not Greece invention. There was great civilizations before Greece. Ancient city Ebla was part of confederation with elected non-hereditary ruler. We are talking 3000 BC. Medea was union with nonhereditary elected ruler. 1000 BC.
Sanskrit is language of Aryans. Vedas belongs to aryans.
In 7000 BC, Bharatvarsha under Emperor Vikramaditya extended from Jerusalem in the West to Cheliabinsk Urals in the North to Vietnam in the East. The seat of this empire was at Ujjain India at the Kshpira ( Shipra ) river, where every 12 years the grand Kumbh Mela is held.. King Vikramaditya’s symbol was the Swastika. Those days the kings used Vimanas or flying saucers,
http://ajitvadakayil.blogspot.com/2011/12/stonehenge-of-arkaim-russia-capt-ajit.html?m=1
The white race has been deliberately “cut off” from its ancestral religion of Hinduism, which was practiced across prehistoric Europe for thousands of years before the rise of Christianity. As a result, whites in the world have “lost their Path” and forgotten “who they are” spiritually, discarding introspection in their wild pursuit of money and material possessions. We’ll examine the modern day censorship of Europe’s indigenous Hindu faith, and the suppression of its key symbol, the Swastika. We’ll see how, as a result, whites have lost their past, their future, and the greatness of their ancient spiritual Way.
http://www.richardcassaro.com/the-ancient-secret-of-the-swastika-the-hidden-history-of-the-white-race-p-1-of-2
However, some recent archeological discoveries in India, Russia and Japan have pushed back the antiquity of the Aryans to at least 6000BC and proved beyond doubt that the ancient Aryans were not nomadic tribes from central Asia but had very advanced urban civilizations. Russian archeologists and linguists also proved that the Aryans have migrated not from the Russian steppes but came to Russia via Armenia and Georgia. There are increasing evidence that India was the original home of the Aryans.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1657572/posts?page=15
n Hindu mythology, Sarai-Svati is Brahm’s sister. The bible gives two stories of Abraham. In this first version, Abraham told Pharaoh that he was lying when he introduced Sarai as his sister. In the second version, he also told the king of Gerar that Sarai was really his sister. However, when the king scolded him for lying, Abraham said that Sarai was in reality both his wife and his sister! “…and yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.” (Genesis 20:12.)
http://www.viewzone.com/abraham2.html
My guess is that the Amorites were Am-Ar, meaning the people/tribe/caste of Ar. Today we call them Aryans. Their name appears in the titles of many of their rulers. Some variations include Ar-Shem, Arsames, Artix, and Araxes, and all of these are named in historical texts.
Arpachshad, Salah, Eber, Peleg and Joktan would have lived during the 9th and 10th Dynasties between 2445–2160 B.C. The name Ar is found in the names of biblical places, such as Wadi Arnon. Ar-non (originally Ar-nxn) means the Ar of Onn/Heliopolis. Here we find a connection between Abraham’s Annu ancestors of Onn and the Amorites.
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2012/01/amorites-caste-of-royal-scribes.html
There were 2 Heliopolis. In Egypt and in Mitani kingdom, today Lebanon. Abraham ended there in Canaan valley.
Pay attention to Eber. Eber-Iberia-Hebrew.
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2012/01/amorites-caste-of-royal-scribes.html
To the city of Ebla, the centre of the world during 2700–2250 BCE, its arch-enemy was the city of Mari on the Euphrates. Like the people of Ebla, the city of Mari was a centre of amazing culture, with one exception.
http://one-faith-of-god.org/new_testament/apocrypha/essenes/essenes_0040.htm
Pay attention to Mari. Vedic Tara was also Terra Mari. Today holly Mary. Basque religion has Mari and symbol is swastika.
http://www.mother-god.com/goddess-tara.html
Tara is everywhere. Hill of Tara Ireland, Ishtar, Ostara.
Actualy biblical Pharisee is broken name for Farsi or Parsi what is Persian. Cyrus the great count judaism as his own religion.There were anciently two branches of Essenes – the Ossaeans and the Nazorean. The southern Ossaeans were known as the B’nai-Zadok, or “Children of Zadok.” The northern Nazorean were known as the B’nai-Amen, or “Children of God.”
http://www.thenazareneway.com/ http://www.essene.com/ http://www.essenes.net/naz/history.html
Zarathushtra, Mani, and the Cathars
http://www.san.beck.org/GPJ8-ManiandCathars.html
Through the epics of the Greek poet Homer, tales of an “age of heroes” have been passed down through millennia. In The Odyssey and The Iliad the poet told of an era dominated by aristocratic warlords who bore ornamented weapons and commanded well-organized, armored chariot troops. This “golden age” culminated in the legendary Trojan War, fought between Troy, located in what is now northwestern Turkey, and Mycenaean Greece.
Homer himself, however, lived four centuries after the Trojan War, in a time when the communities around the Aegean were populated by little more than farmers and shepherds. The tools of the day were not finely-wrought gold nor silver nor bronze, but crudely forged of iron. Nevertheless, Greeks of Homer’s time—the eighth century BC—were surrounded by powerful reminders of a more magnificent, more prosperous past. Mighty walls, some more than seven meters (22′) thick, built of boulders two meters in diameter, jutted out of the soil in some places. Every now and then, a collapsed grave would reveal treasures of gold jewelry, silver vessels, beautifully painted pottery and decorated weapons.
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199503/who.were.the.sea.people..htm
http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/sea.htm
Also search: Kamyana Mohyla, Aratta Ukraine, Andronovo, Yamna, Arkaim, History of Medes, Black Sea deluge.
Apropo. Origins of gnosticism is Lake Urmia under Ararat where Noah landed. Gnosticism in judaism is called kabalah.
http://www.metahistory.org/gnostique/telestics/GnosticOrigins.php
The author of “Yeshu, Essene Jesus of the Gnostic Nazoreans” has, in this lengthy text, accomplished what no one else has done in all of Christian history; that is to show from ancient source material an emergent pattern of the Nazorean Essene community in 1st Century Palestine. Most of the author’s source material is taken from the polemical Ante-Nicene Fathers, Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Codices, recently discovered Manichean Manuscripts, and the translation of the sacred mss. of the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, who are, though still in existence, imperilled today. Due to the Iraq war and cultural upheaval of the modern age, those Mandaeans of Iraq who are mostly in a global diaspora, may not appreciate the author’s association of Yeshua (Jesus, Issa) with the content of their sacred texts.
Book> Buddha-Messiahs: Yeshu, Essene Jesus of the Gnostic Nazoreans, by Davied Asia Israel (Author)
The self-serving falsification of the historical record continues to this very day. Quite diferent world. Ain’t it?
Thanks for all of this Juan…very interesting !!!
Great piece, Jim, many thanks.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Gandhi, regarding Democracy:
“Democracy and violence can ill go together.
Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side.”
It’s a messy process, not always fun, but once we stop listening to the other side, we have fascism, not democracy.
Good Quote Dave…which is why you don’t see them very often. They don’t fit in with the divide and conquer game ones which the spinmeisters feel are more valuable.
This is another fine article by Prof. Nassani. I love these great articles by the professor and don’t want to be a nitpicker but have a couple of comments. To what degree Thucydidys wrote, ad hoc, Pericles funeral oration is a valid question. It may well be, as Nassani contemplates, that direct democracy is the bes (or, in Churchillian terms, the least damaging) form of human political organization. That is did not exist in Athens is beyond question. At the start of one of my VT 911 columns I wrote, “In what has been called Athenian democracy, it has been estimated that slaves constituted around 25% of the human population and free laborers around 30%.”
It is one of civilization’s mysteries that excellence in so many areas arose so early and so full-blown. One thinks immediately of Bach and Shakespeare. Greek philosophers may be the best example of this phenomenon. It is curious that Plato espoused fascism, albeit a benevolent one.
Jeffersonian democracy, as that idealistic genius himself pointed out, relies upon an educated population. That being the case, it behoves us to examine his plan for education in America, a short synopsis of which can be read at bigeye.com/schoolin.htm – the old boy must be rolling his grave unable to counter today’s political charge of “elitism”.
Iceland and Switzerland notwithstanding, the question whether mass American democracy could endure for more time than it would take a demogogue to mount the TV platform is nearly rhetorical.
I’m posting the same reply to this article as posted to Prof. Nissani’s Rand Paul article (and please note the part referencing psychopathy near the end):
Many good points in this article, BUT you are ALL not seeing what MUST BE SEEN! Gordon and others have cautiously broached the subject only to have subsequent articles by contributors continue the same old mindset that we are only dealing with bankster/gangster psychopaths aligned with the military-industrial complex/secret government/Zionists/communists/satanic secret societies/NWO elites. If only! People – WAKE UP ALREADY! We are dealing with the MIEC – the Military Industrial Extraterrestrial Complex – not quite humans (organic portals/psychopaths/clones/cyborgs/human-alien hybrids) allied with Grey/Reptilian hyperdimensional entities. Past and present researchers and others have been warning us and exposing this reality all along while Hollywood has been mocking our stupidity and ignorance while blatantly showing us what’s really going on! Extreme, imposed cognitive dissonance is keeping humanity almost completely unaware of this reality – along with their best control weapon: religious ideology! (I apologize in advance for the overall length of this reply)
From: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/247383-UFOs-Aliens-and-the-Question-of-Contact
“In Gnostic cosmology, Archons are a species of inorganic beings that emerged in the solar system prior to the formation of the earth [...] The Archons are a genuine species with their own proper habitat, and may even be considered to be god-like, but they lack intentionality (ennoia: self-directive capacity), and they have a nasty tendency to stray from their boundaries and intrude on the human realm.”
In Gnostic psychology, the noetic science of the Mystery Schools, Archons are an alien force that intrudes subliminally upon the human mind and deviates our intelligence away from its proper and sane applications.
Working through telepathy and suggestion, the Archons attempt to deviate us from our proper course of evolution. Their most successful technique is to use religious ideology to insinuate their way of thinking and, in effect, substitute their mind-set for ours. According to the Gnostics, Judeo-Christian Salvationism is the primary ploy of the Archons, an alien implant.
[...]
Because the Archons need human complicity to gain power over humankind, any one who assists them can be considered a kind of Archon, an accessory. How do humans assist the Archons? One way is by accepting the mental programs of the Archons – that is, adopting the alien intelligence as if it were human-based – and implementing those programs by actually enforcing them in society. Another way is by actively or passively conforming to the agendas so proposed and imposed. ”-The Gnostic Theory of Alien Intrusion
“We are dealing with a multidimensional paraphysical phenomenon which is largely indigenous to planet earth.” – Brad Steiger, Blue Book Files Released in Canadian UFO Report,1977
“The UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely minor variations of the age-old demonological phenomenon.” – John A. Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse
“The symbolic display seen by the abductees is identical to the type of initiation ritual or astral voyage that is imbedded in the [occult] traditions of every culture…the structure of abduction stories is identical to that of occult initiation rituals…the UFO beings of today belong to the same class of manifestation as the [occult] entities that were described in centuries past.” – Dr. Jacques Vallee
“[,,,] I believe there is a system around us that transcends time as it transcends space. The system may well be able to locate itself in outer space, but its manifestations are not spacecraft in the ordinary ‘nuts and bolts’ sense. The UFO’s are physical manifestations that cannot be understood apart from their psychic and symbolic reality. What we see in effect here is a control system which acts on humans and uses humans.” – Dr. Jacques Vallee
“The idea that men, women, and children can be taken against their wills from their homes, cars, and school yards by strange humanoid beings, lifted onto spacecraft, and subjected to intrusive and threatening procedures is so terrifying, and yet so shattering to our notions of what is possible in our universe, that the actuality of the phenomenon has been largely rejected out of hand or bizarrely distorted in most media accounts.” – John E. Mack, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Harvard, from his book Abduction
“It is fair to conclude that hybridization is part of the picture. People are being abducted against their will. [Alien] forces seem to be conducting genetic experimentation and acting on us to create a hybrid species.” – prominent researcher and historian of UFOs Richard Dolan
“By playing on our self-reflection, which is the only point of awareness left to us, the predators create flares of awareness that they proceed to consume in a ruthless, predatory fashion. They give us inane problems that force those flares of awareness to rise, and in this manner they keep us alive in order for them to be fed with the energetic flare of our pseudo concerns.
[...]
What I’m saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart, and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He’s an average piece of meat. There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic.” – Don Juan Matus in The Active Side of Infinity by Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-American anthropologist and author on Mesoamerican shamanism
[AND HERE'S THE KICKER:]
The story of the Archons is similar to what Don Juan talked about in the last book by Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity:
‘Ah, that’s the universe at large, ‘ he said, ‘incommensurable, nonlinear, outside the realm of syntax. The sorcerers of ancient Mexico were the first ones to see those fleeting shadows, so they followed them around. They saw them as you’re seeing them, and they saw them as energy that flows in the universe. And they did discover something transcendental. [...] They discovered that we have a companion for life. We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don’t do so. [...] You have arrived, by your effort alone, to what the shamans of ancient Mexico called the topic of topics. I have been beating around the bush all this time, insinuating to you that something is holding us prisoner. Indeed we are held prisoner! This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico.
‘Why has this predator taken over in the fashion that you’re describing, don Juan?’ I asked. ‘There must be a logical explanation.’
‘There is an explanation,’ don Juan replied, ‘which is the simplest explanation in the world. They took over because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance. Just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, the predators rear us in human coops. Therefore, their food is always available to them.’
[...]
‘I want to appeal to your analytical mind, ‘ Don Juan said. ‘Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs, or the stupidity of his contradictory behavior. Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of beliefs, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal. ‘
‘But how can they do this, don Juan?’ I asked, somehow angered further by what he was saying. ‘Do they whisper all that in our ears while we are asleep?’
‘No, they don’t do it that way. That’s idiotic!’ don Juan said, smiling. ‘They are infinitely more efficient and organized than that. In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous maneuver – stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous maneuver from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predators’ mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now.
‘I know that even though you have never suffered hunger… you have food anxiety, which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its maneuver is going to be uncovered and food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear.”
LASTLY, (AGAIN FROM THE SAME SOURCE):
“In the end, we return to the question, just how much do you love truth? Do you really love truth or are you just curious? Do you love it enough to rebuild your understanding to conform to a reality that doesn’t fit your current beliefs, and doesn’t feel 120% happy? Do you love truth enough to continue seeking even when it hurts, when it reveals aspects of yourself (or human society, or the universe) that are shocking, complex and disturbing, or humbling, glorious and amazing – or even, when truth is far beyond human mind itself? Just how much do we love truth? It’s a good question to ask ourselves, I think.” – Psychologist and author Scott Mandelker
UFOs, Aliens, and the Question of Contact full length
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGmec-bvoLU&feature=player_embedded
The evidence is overwhelming as to the reality of this phenomenon. Also, please contemplate this regarding modern day prophet Edgar Cayce:
[...]But it was the information that Cayce revealed about the future which he is probably most known for. He provided information about the history of humanity from the very beginning to a time in the future when humans will evolve into beings with supernatural powers. He described a new era of enlightenment and peace when divinity within humans would be manifested on the Earth. But before this “kingdom of God” would rule the world, Cayce foresaw world events that can only be described as apocalyptic, a period of purification involving natural disasters that will dramatically alter the surface of the Earth, wars, economic collapse, and socio-political unrest. These visions of the future agree with what is known about prophecies from NDEs.
Cayce believed that these horrible future events could be averted if humanity changed its behavior. And this is the purpose for giving prophecies – to warn people to change so that the prophecies won’t happen. Since Cayce certainly was not 100% accurate in his predictions, I believe this only shows how some of Cayce’s apocalyptic predictions have been averted. So, a successful gloom and doom prophecy is one that does doesn’t occur. Cayce’s prophecies became well-known all over the world and a case may be made that he may have had some influence in creating the change within people to alter the course of history enough so that the prophecy would not happen. Cayce would repeatedly say that even the Lord of Lords could not accurately predict future events because human free will can alter and change the future.[...]
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/cayce11.html
Cassiopaean Transcript Session 30 May 2009
Q: (L) What’s next?
A: How about “Paleochristianity”?
Q: (laughter) (L) Well since you brought it up… (J) You should respond with, “Now that’s an interesting question!” (laughter) (L) What do you mean by Paleochristianity? (laughter) (L) Would you define Paleochristianity for us?
A: The knowledge of realms that all men comprehended before the “fall”.
[...]
Q: (L) Okay, what is the importance of Paleochristianity?
A: The only hope for the survival of your realm and species.
Q: (L) In what sense do you mean that?
A: Unification of aim: survival and avoidance of the destruction hanging over your heads as a consequence of the machinations of psychopathy.
From Laura Knight-Jadczyk’s Adventures with Casseopaea:
And so it is that we have become acutely aware of the fact that our approach of evaluating our reality in what amounts to Scientific Gnostic terms, which suggests that this world we experience, our normally sensed space-time, is “embedded” in a fifth dimension (and here I use the term as mathematicians use it, NOT as it is used by the so-called “New Age”) that is REAL, and our reality is the “battlefield” of denizens of hyperdimensional space-time, is considered to be as dangerous as that of the Cathars who had many similar ideas. That is to say, we, human beings, are the “playing pieces” in vast and complex Secret Games of the Gods, and our actions or lack of action represent the moves and maneuvers of said denizens of hyperdimensional space who most desperately do NOT want us to unite in our awareness of their existence, and who exert great effort to confuse and obfuscate humanity to that end. Because certainly, if we know of their existence, and their games, we will stop playing.
This is the Most Dangerous Idea on Earth.
FINAL COMMENT (paraphrased from the movie WARGAMES):
THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS TO NOT PLAY THE GAME
vt does not dictate doctrine
writers eventually mature material, we have found.
g
I have posted a reply to some of these interesting ideas in my Strategic Lessons” article. Thanks.
I read this essay and it rings of truth.
The Ancient Athenians are never heralded for their experiment in democracy-they are demonized for it. In the worst tradition of fabricating all kinds of lies, history delights in making up reasons to deride the Athenians. It is almost as if they truly did have an important key-and the current crop of “historians” must work overtime to do the bidding of their masters, and defile the experiment-lest it catch on.
No, we here in the USA are not free, nor do we live in a democracy. The Republic is, and always has been a tool for protecting the power and wealth of the elite. Read Prof. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”-if you dare.The checks and balances never worked as well as we were told, and the central bank could never be long held at bay.
Its somewhat amazing, that even with the great compromise of the republic-rather than a direct democracy-the greed merchants were never satisfied. Today the republic, and the constitution, is no longer in existence.
The gov’t is overrun with demented psychopaths. Inevitably, with sickos at the helm, the ship of state will meet its ruin.
Maybe then humanity can try a true democracy-again.
At the risk of getting an arrow through my neck – Iceland has an important link to America. This is because Icelandic Scandinavians, traveling along Greenland, were the first people to occupy and inhabit the Americas. They did this long before the first Indian tribes crossed the Bering straits from Asia. This is why the oldest bones discovered in North America are European – and of course now causing some controversy. Any idea who should the Icelandics file their legal claim for dis-possession of land with?
I think the link was with the Vikings…and they might have been banished themselves as traveling in open boats with limited provisions long distances through the North Sea is as close to a death sentence as I can imagine.
Ancient Americans earlier than American Indians I believe have been found, from an earlier migration. Of course the natives then had a different attitude about the land belonging to who was here first. The natives stopped further digging when they got the bad DNA news of ‘other folks’.
The who was there first was never a theory that armed Indian war parties acknowledged when they came back from raids with scalps and slaves.
All that got airbrushed out of the narrative though. The consulted with someone with experience in that sort of thing.
Great stuff. I seem to recall, also, that in order to vote in ancient Greece a citizen had to have served in the armed forces and had his arse in the firing line at some point. It was an incentive to young men to serve.
This was a simple way of ensuring that any decision to go to war was made by people who had already been there – and whose patriotism and agenda was not in question.