The Sixth Estate: 2009

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Zionism and anti-Semitism

Israel's anti-Semitic friends Tony Greenstein, The Electronic Intifada, 3 November 2009

Michal Kaminski, who opposes Poland apologizing for the massacre of hundreds of Jews in a Polish village in 1941, on a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. (ECR)

There can be few supporters of the Palestinians, still less anti-Zionists, who haven't, at some time or another, been accused of "anti-Semitism." Accusations that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism have become little more than a ritual exercise in defamation. The danger in making such accusations is, to quote the former Director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, Antony Lerman, that it "drains the word antisemitism of any useful meaning." Moreover, its purpose is to discourage criticism of Israel and support of the Palestinians or risk being labeled as anti-Semitic. As I wrote two years ago, "If you cry wolf long and loud enough, when anti-Semitism does raise its head no one will bat an eyelid."

The European political establishment, like its American counterpart, has taken to the idea that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are indistinguishable. According to the European Union's Working Definition, anti-Semitism includes: denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor), drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, and holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel. It is ironic that the EU's definition of anti-Semitism is itself anti-Semitic!

But the idea that "Jewish people" wherever they live, form a nation separate from the people they live amongst, because that is the meaning of self-determination, is itself an anti-Semitic concept. What is really being stated is that Jews form a race, not a nation.

Moreover, if drawing comparisons between Israeli policies and the Nazis is anti-Semitic, then the late Marek Edelman, the Commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, must have been an anti-Semite. In 2002, Edelman stated publicly that Palestinian resistance fighters in the second intifada were the inheritors of the Jewish Fighting Organization of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Similarly, since holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli state is indeed anti-Semitic, what then is one to make of the actions of the Board of Deputies of British Jews? On 9 January 2009 the Board of Deputies held a rally under the title "Community to Show Support for Israel at Trafalgar Square Rally."

Zionism held that Jews were strangers in other peoples' lands and that anti-Semitism was the natural, if not justifiable, reaction to an alien presence among them. It was but a short step from this to an acceptance that anti-Semitic characteristics and caricatures of Jews were essentially correct. Indeed, the conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism is yet another irony, as historically, it was non-Jewish support of Zionism that was seen by Jews as anti-Semitic. What anti-Semites and leading Zionists said about Jews were almost indistinguishable. As A.B. Yehoshua, one of Israel's foremost novelists, stated in a lecture to the Union of Jewish Students: "Even today, in a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must be a Zionist." And from Pinhas Felix Rosenbluth, a leading German Zionist, to Arthur Ruppin, head of the Jewish Agency, Zionists have not hesitated to employ anti-Semitic rhetoric to further their cause.

This is not so strange, because what one is talking about are in reality two entirely different forms of political philosophy with the same name -- anti-Semitism. Contrary to received opinion, there is nothing in common between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Certainly the Zionist movement has deliberately confused the two, but the former is a form of anti-racism whereas the latter is a form of racism. There can be no blurring at the edges or overlap. One is either an anti-Semite or an anti-Zionist. One cannot be both.

Therefore, it is not surprising that today, with the growth of far right and neo-fascist parties in Europe, that almost without exception they are pro-Israel. Thus, the very people who criticize anti-Zionists and Palestinian supporters as anti-Semitic are rushing to hold the hands of Zionism's far-right supporters.

For example Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Ron Prossor was more than happy to share a platform at the Conservative Friends of Israel with Michal Kaminski of the Polish Justice and Freedom Party. Kaminski is notorious in Poland for openly opposing the call for an official apology for the 1941 massacre of hundreds of Jews in the Polish village of Jedwabne.

Last month, Israel's Ambassador to the European Union, Ran Curiel, paid the first visit by an ambassador to the Kaminski-chaired European Conservatives & Reform (ECR) Group in the European Parliament. As quoted in a 13 October news post on ECR's website, Curiel told the assembled audience that "'After years of "megaphone diplomacy" between Israel and Europe, an open dialogue is the best thing we can do now.'" Furthermore, "He highly appreciated the support of the ECR Group for the two-state solution to the 'peace process' which would fully ensure the security of the State of Israel and respect the border of national states."

Curiel's visit followed an earlier visit by Kaminski to Israel with the European Friends of Israel organization. It was Kaminski's first visit to a non-EU country as Chairman of the ECR. According to a 25 September post on the Conservative Friends of Israel's website, at a dinner held by the organization Kaminski explained that Israel was deliberately chosen as his first trip so that he could "'deliver the message that there is a group in the European Parliament that will be a true friend of Israel.'"

Similarly in the UK, Kaminski's Zionist allies rushed to his defense last month. As the Jewish Chronicle reported on 15 October, several members of the Jewish Leadership Council were outraged when Board of Deputies President Vivian Wineman wrote a letter to David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, questioning the Tory alliance with Kaminski and his far-right Justice and Freedom Party in the European Parliament. Andrew Gilbert, one of a number of deputies who believe the letter to Cameron ill-judged, stated that "'Nobody in the Jewish or political community did enough research either to say that Michal Kaminski or Roberts Zile have suspect views, which means we should shun them, or to clear them.'"

Nor is the Conservative party alone in embracing Israel's fascist allies. The British National Party is a growing party, with more than 50 local councilors and two members of the European Parliament. On 22 October 2009, its leader, Nick Griffin, appeared on the BBC's premier program Question Time, to a wave of protests. How did he explain away his anti-Semitism and support for holocaust denial? By explaining that though he might not be too fond of Jews, he was a strong supporter of Israel, stating that "there are Nazis in Britain and they loathe me because I have brought the BNP from being frankly an anti-Semitic and racist organization into being the only political party which in the clashes between Israel and Gaza stood full-square behind Israel's right to deal with Hamas terrorists."

As the Guardian reported in April 2008, Board of Deputies spokesperson Ruth Smeed let readers know that "The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web -- it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel."

But Kaminski and Roberts Zile, of the Waffen-SS supporting Latvian Freedom and Fatherland Party, are not the exceptions. Dutch far-right anti-Islam politician and Member of Parliament Geert Wilders is another figure who combines virulent racism with Zionism. As reported in the Israeli daily Haaretz on 18 June, Wilders claimed that "Israel is only the first line of defense for the West. Now it's Israel but we are next. That's why beyond solidarity, it is in Europe's interest to stand by Israel."

Wilders is facing criminal charges for inciting hate by comparing the Quran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. After winning five seats in June parliamentary elections, Wilders's Party of Freedom is now the second largest political party in the country. Wilders has also found common cause with the right-wing openly racist political party of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Of Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, Wilders explained that "'Our parties may not be identical, but there are certainly more similarities than dissimilarities, and I am proud of that,'" (Haaretz, 18 June 2009). He added that "'Lieberman's an intelligent, strong and clever politician and I understand why his party grew in popularity.'"

Indeed, the only far-right party that I could find whose anti-Semitism is disguised as anti-Zionism is Jobbik, the Movement for a Better Hungary, a descendant of the pro-Nazi Nyilas. During World War II, Nyilas was responsible for the deaths of some 50,000 mainly Budapest Jews. Leaders of the party were executed by the Hungarian state after liberation. This is the party that the BNP, which "opposes anti-Semitism," is joined with in the European Parliament.

Therefore, when Israel's Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz claims that Judge Richard Goldstone is an "anti-Semite" and that it is possible for a Jew to be an anti-Semite, he is right: the history of Zionism is indeed full of such examples!

Tony Greenstein is a trade union activist, a member of UNISON, Brighton & Hove Trades Council and Secretary of Brighton & Hove Unemployed Workers Centre, where he works as an employment adviser. He runs a socialist, anti-Zionist blog, http://www.azvsas.blogspot.com/. Latest articles on EI:
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(Reprinted undcr FAIR USE DOCTRINE for educational exchange and non-commercial purposes.

In June of 1895, the first entry into his new journal on Zionism, Theodor Hertzl wrote:

"In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism."

This is but one of the gems in a book entitled "Zionism In The Age of the Dictators: A Reappraisal" by Lenni Brenner, Lawrence Hill and Company, 1983.

From Brenner's book:

"To be a Good Zionist one must be Somewhat of an Anti-Semite:

Although blut was a recurrent theme in pre-Holocaust Zionist literature, it was not as central to its message as boden. As long as America's shores remained open, Europe's Jews asked: if anti-Semitism could not be fought on its home ground, why should they not just follow the crowd to America? The Zionist response was double-barrelled: anti-Semitism would accompany the Jews wherever they went and, what was more, it was the Jews who had created anti-Semitism by their own characteristics. The root cause of anti-Semitism, Zionists insisted, was the Jews' exile existence. Jews lived parasitically off their 'hosts'...

These tenets combined were known as 'shelilat ha'galut (the Negation of the Diaspora), and were held by the entire spectrum of Zionists who varied only on matters of detail. They were argued vigorously in the Zionist press, where the distinctive quality of many articles was their hostility to the entire Jewish people. Anyone reading these pieces without knowing their source would have automatically assumed that they came from the Anti-Semitic press. The Weltanschauung of the youth organization Hashomer Hatzair (Young Watchmen), originally composed in 1917, but republished again as late as 1936, was typical of these effusions:

The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both pysically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligations, knows no order nor discipline. (pp 22-23)

Similarly, in 1935 an American Ben Frommer, a writer for the ultra-right Zionist-Revisionists, could declare of no less than 16 million of his fellow Jews that:

The fact is undeniable that the Jews collectively are unhealthy and neurotic. Those professional Jews who, wounded to the quick, igdignantly deny this truth are the greatest enemies of their race, for they thereby lead them to search for false solutions, or at most palliatives." (p. 23)

And:

In 1925 the most vehement protagonist of total abstentionism, Jcob Klatzkin, the co-editor of the massive "Encyclopedia Judaica", laid down the full implications of the Zionist approach to anti-Semitism.

If we do not admit the rightfulness of antisemitism, we deny the rightfulness of our own nationalism. If our people is deserving and willing to live its own national life, then it is an alien body thrust into the nations among whom it lives, an alien body that insists on its own distinctive identity, reducing the domain of their life. It is right therefore, that they should fight against us for their national integrity...Instead of establishing societies for defense against antisemites, who want to reduce our rights, we should establish societies for defense against our friends who desire to defend our rights." (p. 30)

Zionism and Anti-Semitism I

From Tom Segev, "The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust" Hill and Wang, NY, 1993

" On January 31, 1933, the day after Hitler became chancellor, the independent liberal daily 'Haaretz' decried this 'hugely negative historical event'. Ten days later it ran a headline that read, 'BLACK DAYS IN GERMANY.' The paper followed the ongoing 'anti-Semitic horror', but during those first weeks it, like the British press, generally aimed at reassuring its readers: 'One must suppose that Hitlerism will now renounce terrorist methods: government brings responsibility.' the right-wing 'Doar Hayom' agreed: 'There can be no doubt that Hitler the chancellor will be different from the Hitler of the public rallies.' But from the start, 'Davar'--the left-wing daily published by the Histadrut (Labor Federation)--was more pessimistic: 'It was a bitter and ill-fated day when the New Vandal came to power', the newspaper wrote the day after the change of government in Germany. It described Hitler as a man of hate and demagoguery who would 'tear Jews out by their roots.' " (p 17)

"More than anything else, though, the rise of the Nazis was seen as confirming the historical prognosis of Zionist ideology. 'Hapoel Hatsair' described the nazi persecution of the Jews as 'punishment for their having tried to integrate into German society instead of leaving for Palestine while it was still possible to do so.' Now they would have to run in a panic 'like mice in flight', the paper said. 'The Jews of Germany are being persecuted now not despite their efforts to be part of their country but because of those efforts.' The holocaust would later be the primary argument fro the establishment of the State of Israel and for its wars of survival." (p. 18)

"Ben-Gurion hoped that the Nazis victory would become 'a fertile force' for Zionism." (p. 18) "The 'haavara' ('transfer') agreement--the Hebrew term was used in the Nazi documents as well--was based on the complementary interests of the German government and the Zionist movement: the Nazis wanted the Jews out of Germany; the Zionists wanted them to come to Palestine. But there was no such mutuality of interests between the Zionists and German Jewry. Most German Jews would have preferred to stay in their country. The tension between the interests of the 'yishuv' [Jewish community in Palestine] (and, in time, the State of Israel) and those of world Jewry was to become a central motif in the story of the Israelis' attitude to the Holocaust." (p.20)

"The revisionist right, by contrast, had long been sympathetic to Benito Mussolini's Fascism and now and then even to Adolf Hitler's Naziism--except, of course, his anti-Semitism. Betar, Jabotinsky's youth movement, fostered classic Fascist ideas and forms. In 1928, Abba Ahimeir, a well-known Revisionist journalist, had a regular column, 'From the Notebook of a Fascist', in the newspaper 'Doar Hayom'. In anticipation of Jabotinsky's arrival in Palestine, he wrote an article titled 'On the Arrival of Our Duce' " (p. 23)

"Four years later, in early 1932, Ahimeir was among those brought to trial for disrupting a public lecvture at Hebrew University. The incident and the resulting trial are worthy of note only because of a declaration by defense attorney Zvi Eliahu Cohen in response to a speech by the prosecutor comparing the disruption of the lecture with the Nazi disturbances in Germany.

'The comment on the Nazis', Cohen said, 'went too far. Were it not for Hitler's anti-Semitism, we would not oppose his ideology. Hitler saved Germany.' This was not an unconsidered outburst; the Revisionist paper 'Hazit Haam' praised Cohen's 'brilliant speech.' " (p. 23)

"...[from Hazit Haam] 'Social Democrats of all stripes believe that Hitler's movement is an empty shell.', the newspaper explained, but 'we believe that there is both a shell and a kernel. The anti-Semitic shell is to be discarded, but not the anti-Marxist kernel. The Revisionists, the newspaper wrote, would fight the Nazis only to the extent that they were anti-Semites." (p. 23) -

"The haavara agreement was a central issue in the elections in the summer of 1933 for representatives to the Eighteenth Zionist Congress. The Revisionists rejected [in a turnabout] any contact with Nazi Germany. It was inconsistent with the honor of the Jewish people, they said; Jabotinsky declared it 'ignoble, disgraceful and contemptible'. The Revisionist press now castigated the Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency as 'Hitler's allies', people 'who have trampled roughshod on Jewish honor, on Jewish conscience, and on Jewish ethics...dark characters who have come to trade on the troubles of the Jews and on the land of Israel...low types who have accepted the role of Hitler's agents in Palestine and in the entire Near East...traitors...deceivers who lust after Hitler's government.' " (p. 24)

"After reading the Nazi Party newspaper, Ben-Gurion wrote, it seemed to him that he was reading the words of Zeev Jabotinsky in Doar Hayom: 'the same thing, the same style, and the same spirit.' " (p. 24)

"In his impassioned speech, Ben-Gurion called for the rescue of German Jewry, 'a tribe of Israel', and their transfer to Palestine, rather than action against Hitler. ' I do not believe that we can oust him and I am not interested in anything other than saving these 500,000 Jews,' he said. Ben-Gurion saw the debate between rescue and boycott as a debate between Zionism and assimilation, between the nationalist interests of Jewish settlement in Palestine and the international war against anti-Semitism. The assumption imnplicit in his words was that the war against anti-Semitism was not a part of the Zionist mission." (pp. 24-25)

"To make his point, Ben-Gurion used harsh language that would in time be employed by anti-Zionists: 'If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second--because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people.' In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, Ben-Gurion commented that the 'human conscience' might bring various countries to open their doors to Jewish refugees from Germany. He saw this as a threat and warned: 'Zionism is in danger.' " (p 28)

"Nevertheless, the pragmatists were convinced that the boycott of Germany could not advance the interests of Palestine, that their ends could best be accomplished through contact with the Nazis. Thus the leaders sought to keep relations with Nazi Germany as normal as possible: Two months after Hitler came to power the Jewish Agency executive in Jerusalem had sent a telegram straight to the Fuhrer in Berlin, assuring him that the yishuv had not declared a boycott against his country; the telegram was sent at the request of German Jewry in the hope of halting their persecution, but it reflected the Jewish Agency's inclination to maintain correct relations with the Nazi Government. Many years later, Menachem Begin revealed that the Zionist Organization had sent Hitler a cable of condolence on the death of President Hindenburg." (p. 29)

"Traveling on to Cairo, he [Eichmann] summoned a Jew from Jerusalem, one Fiebl Folkes. A report from Eichmann wrote of his trip and the record of his interrogation by the Israeli police decades later indicate[s] that Folkes was a member of the Haganah--the clandestine Jewish defense force--and a Nazi agent. On one occasion he even met with Eichmann in Berlin. The Nazis paid him for his information, mostly rather general political and economic evaluations. Among other things, Eichmann quoted Folkes to the effect that Zionist leaders were pleased by the persecution of German Jewry, since it would encourage immigration to Palestine." (p. 30)

"Ironically the Revisionists also had fairly wide-ranging links with the Nazis. The Betar youth movement was active in Berlin and several other German cities. About half a year before the Nazis came to power, the movement's leadership distributed a memorandum to its members that was both commonsensical and cautious. The Nazis should be treated politely and with reserve, the memorandum instructed. Whenever Betar members were in public, they should remain quiet and refrain from vocal debates and critical comments. Under no circumstances should anyone say anything that could be interpreted as an insult to the German people, to its institutions, or to its prevailing ideology.

The Nazis allowed Betar to continue its activities--meetings, conventions, summer camps hikes, sports, sailing, and agricultural training. Members were allowed to wear their uniforms, which included brown shirts, and they were allowed to publish mimeographed pamphlets, including Zionist articles in a nationalistic, para-Fascist tone, in the spirit of the times. The German Betar pamphlets focused on events in Palestine, and their exuberant nationalism targeted the British, the Arabs, and the Zionist left. The contained no references to the political situation in Germany. With this exception, they were similar to the nationalist German youth publications, including those published by the Nazis. Jabotinsky decried the influence Hitlerism was having on the members of Betar." (pp. 32)

In the second half of 1940, a few members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization)--the anti-British terrorist group sponsored by the Revisionists and known by its acronym Etzel, and to the British simply as the Irgun--made contact with representatives of Fascist Italy, offering to cooperate against the British. Soon the Etzel split, and the group headed by Avraham "Yair" Stern formed itself into the Lehi (from the initials of its Hebrew name, Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), also known as the Stern Gang. A representative of this group met with a German foreign ministry official and offered to help Nazi Germany in its war against the British. The Germans understood that the group aimed to establish an independent state based on the totalitarian principles of the Fascist and Nazi regimes. Many years after he tried to forge this lik with Nazis, a former Lehi leader explained what had guided his men at the time: 'Our obligation was to fight the enemy. We were justified in taking aid from the Nazi oppressor, who was in this case the enemy of our enemy--the British.' " (p. 33)

"The question was what to do with those refugees who were neither Zionist nor fit to help build the new society in Palestine. 'Only God knows how the poor little land of Israel can take in this stream of people and emerge with a healthy social structure', Chaim Weizmann wrote. The German Immigrants Association complained that the Jewish Agency's representatives in Berlin were giving immigration certificates to invalids. ' The human material [direct quote and their words] coming from Germany is getting worse and worse', the association charged after almost a year of Nazi rule. 'They are not able and not willing to work, and they need social assistance.' A year later the association sent to Berlin a list of names of people who should not have been sent. Henrietta Szold, who headed the Jewish Agency's social-work division, also frequently protested about the sick and needy among the immigrants. From time to time Szold demanded that certain of such 'cases' be returned to Nazi Germany so that they would not be a burden on the yishuv." (p. 43)

"In 1937 the Joint Distribution Committee, an American organization that assisted needy Jews, negotiated with the German authorities for the release of 120 Jewish prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp. 'I am not so sure that from a political point of view it is desirable that all those released come to Palestine', a Jewish Agency official wrote to one of his colleagues. Most were not Zionists; and there may even have been Communists among them." (pp 43-44)

"Senator [Werner Senator of the Jewish Agency] who was active in bringing German Jews to Palestine, warned the Jewish Agency office in Berlin that if it did not improve the quality of the 'human material' it was sending, the agency was liable to cut back the number of certificates set aside for the German capital. The immigrants from Germany enjoyed all sorts of special benefits, Senator wrote. They received immigration certificates after only six months of agricultural training, while in other countries up to two years was required. Requests for family reunification from Germans with relatives in Palestine were also quickly approved. All this required special attention to the quality of immigrants, who should be true pioneers. Senator was not referring to occasional errors in judgment, he assured his colleagues; he was talking about a trend. More and more ' welfare cases' were arriving from Germany, as well as too many 'businessmen with children' rather than single men and women. At one point it was decided that candidates above the age of thirty-five would receive immigration certificates 'only if there is no reason to believe that they might become a burden here.' Accordingly they had to have a profession. 'Anyone who was a merchant', the decision stated, or of similar employment, will not receive a certificate under any circumstances, except in the case of veteran Zionists.' This was in 1935. ' In days of plenty, it was possible to handle this material [emphasis added]' , explained Yitzhak Gruenbaum. 'In days of shortages and unemployment, this material [emphasis added] will cause us many problems...We must be allowed to choose from among the refugees those worthy of immigration and not accept them all.' "

(p. 44) Footnote: "In 1939 the world press followed the drama of the St Louis, a boat carrying several hundred Jewish refugees from Germany. No country would give them asylum. The Joint Distribution Committee asked the Jewish Agency to allot the passengers several hundred immigration certificates from the quota. The Jewish Agency refused. In the end the refugees were allowed into Antwerp. [note where many were exterminated after the takeover of Belgium by the Nazis.]. (p. 44)

" German Jews who were given immigration permits 'merely as refugees' were also considered 'undesirable human material' by Eliahu Dobkin, a Mapai member of the Jewish Agency executive. 'I understand very well the special situation in which the overseas institutions dealing with German refugees find themselves, but I would like to believe that you would agree with me that we must approach this question not from a philanthropic point of view but from the point of view of the country's needs', Dobkin wrote to one of his colleagues. 'My opinion is that from among the refugees we must bring only those who meet this condition.' Leaders of the German immigrants agreed. 'As I see it, 90 percent of them are not indispensible here', one of them wrote to another." (pp 44-45)

"It was an incomparably cruel reality: every Jew who received an immigration certificate during those years lived in Palestine knowing that some other Jew who had not received that certificate had been murdered. This was the basis for the sense of guilt that would later trouble so many Israelis who escaped the Holocaust." (p 45)

Monday, September 14, 2009

Free Leonard Peltier! Now Barack Obama's Political Prisoner

I Am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner. Now: If Only the Government Had Respected Its Own Laws...

By LEONARD PELTIER

The United States Department of Justice has once again made a mockery of its lofty and pretentious title. After releasing an original and continuing disciple of death cult leader Charles Manson (sic - Lynette Squeaky Fromme) who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford, an admitted Croatian terrorist, and another attempted assassin of President Ford under the mandatory 30-year parole law, the U.S. Parole Commission deemed that my release would "promote disrespect for the law." If only the federal government would have respected its own laws, not to mention the treaties that are, under the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, I would never have been convicted nor forced to spend more than half my life in captivity. Not to mention the fact that every law in this country was created without the consent of Native peoples and is applied unequally at our expense. If nothing else, my experience should raise serious questions about the FBI's supposed jurisdiction in Indian Country.

The parole commission's phrase was lifted from soon-to-be former U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley, who apparently hopes to ride with the FBI cavalry into the office of North Dakota governor. In this Wrigley is following in the footsteps of William Janklow, who built his political career on his reputation as an Indian fighter, moving on up from tribal attorney (and alleged rapist of a Native minor) to state attorney general, South Dakota governor, and U.S. Congressman. Some might recall that Janklow claimed responsibility for dissuading President Clinton from pardoning me before he was convicted of manslaughter. Janklow's historical predecessor, George Armstrong Custer, similarly hoped that a glorious massacre of the Sioux would propel him to the White House, and we all know what happened to him.

Unlike the barbarians that bay for my blood in the corridors of power, however, Native people are true humanitarians who pray for our enemies. Yet we must be realistic enough to organize for our own freedom and equality as nations. We constitute 5% of the population of North Dakota and 10% of South Dakota and we could utilize that influence to promote our own power on the reservations, where our focus should be. If we organized as a voting bloc, we could defeat the entire premise of the competition between the Dakotas as to which is the most racist.

In the 1970s we were forced to take up arms to affirm our right to survival and self-defense, but today the war is one of ideas. We must now stand up to armed oppression and colonization with our bodies and our minds. International law is on our side.

Given the complexion of the three recent federal parolees, it might seem that my greatest crime was being Indian. But the truth is that my gravest offense is my innocence. In Iran, political prisoners are occasionally released if they confess to the ridiculous charges on which they are dragged into court, in order to discredit and intimidate them and other like-minded citizens. The FBI and its mouthpieces have suggested the same, as did the parole commission in 1993, when it ruled that my refusal to confess was grounds for denial of parole.

To claim innocence is to suggest that the government is wrong, if not guilty itself. The American judicial system is set up so that the defendant is not punished for the crime itself, but for refusing to accept whatever plea arrangement is offered and for daring to compel the judicial system to grant the accused the right to right to rebut the charges leveled by the state in an actual trial. Such insolence is punished invariably with prosecution requests for the steepest possible sentence, if not an upward departure from sentencing guidelines that are being gradually discarded, along with the possibility of parole.

As much as non-Natives might hate Indians, we are all in the same boat. To attempt to emulate this system in tribal government is pitiful, to say the least. It was only this year, in the Troy Davis, case, that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized innocence as a legitimate legal defense. Like the witnesses that were coerced into testifying against me, those that testified against Davis renounced their statements, yet Davis was very nearly put to death. I might have been executed myself by now, had not the government of Canada required a waiver of the death penalty as a condition of extradition.

The old order is aptly represented by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who stated in his dissenting opinion in the Davis case, "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged 'actual innocence' is constitutionally cognizable."

The esteemed Senator from North Dakota, Byron Dorgan, who is now the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, used much the same reasoning in writing that "our legal system has found Leonard Peltier guilty of the crime for which he was charged. I have reviewed the material from the trial, and I believe the verdict was fair and just."

It is a bizarre and incomprehensible statement to Natives, as well it should be, that innocence and guilt is a mere legal status, not necessarily rooted in material fact. It is a truism that all political prisoners were convicted of the crimes for which they were charged. The truth is the government wants me to falsely confess in order to validate a rather sloppy frame-up operation, one whose exposure would open the door to an investigation of the United States' role in training and equipping goon squads to suppress a grassroots movement on Pine Ridge against a puppet dictatorship.

In America, there can by definition be no political prisoners, only those duly judged guilty in a court of law. It is deemed too controversial to even publicly contemplate that the federal government might fabricate and suppress evidence to defeat those deemed political enemies. But it is a demonstrable fact at every stage of my case. I am Barack Obama's political prisoner now, and I hope and pray that he will adhere to the ideals that impelled him to run for president.

But as Obama himself would acknowledge, if we are expecting him to solve our problems, we missed the point of his campaign. Only by organizing in our own communities and pressuring our supposed leaders can we bring about the changes that we all so desperately need.

Please support the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee in our effort to hold the United States government to its own words.I thank you all who have stood by me all these years, but to name anyone would be to exclude many more. We must never lose hope in our struggle for freedom.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,Leonard PeltierLeonard Peltier #89637-132USP-LewisburgUS PenitentiaryPO Box 1000Lewisburg, PA 17837

Thursday, September 3, 2009

On Critical Thinking: Separating The Pepper From the Fly Excrement (click on each page for enlargement)

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Some Lectures in China

Course to Graduate Students on Critiques of Neoclassical Economics

Tsinghua University,

Beijing, China

Lecture, Academy of Marxism; Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Beijing, China

August 11, 2009

Friday, August 28, 2009

Spirals of Causality: Imperialism,

The "Logic" of Capitalism and Imperialism

The Imperial Expansion Spiral

The Imperial Decline Spiral

Indigenous Approaches to Economic Development: Lecture Given at Yunnan University, Kunming, China, July 25, 2009

Indigenous Approaches to Economic Development and Sustainability
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Lecture/Paper Delivered to the Faculty of Anthropology and

Ethnology, Yunnan University, Kunming, China, July 25, 2009

By James M. Craven/Omahkohkiaayo I’poyi
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Professor of Economics and Geography, Clark College, Vancouver, WA. USA

Member, Blackfoot Nation
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Introduction

I began my studies of Political Economy over 40 years ago. In my first classes in Economics, in 1965, economic growth (increases in real GDP per person) was considered as either equivalent to economic development (qualitative improvements of the overall quality of life for the average person) or at least the major necessary conditon of economic development. There was no notion that economic growth in the short-run, or of a certain nature involving certain types of “goods” and services, or of benefit only to a small group and not everyone, or that involved massive and unaccounted for negative externalities[1] , could potentially harm, not enhance, overall economic development (the overall quality of life faced by the average person).

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As for the causes of economic growth, the models I was taught all noted that it takes inputs to produce output, and, that the major inputs were land, labor and capital. Of the major inputs, it was assumed that capital was the most decisive as it was said to be fundamental to augmenting and making operative the potentials, capabilities and productivity of the other inputs land and labor. And “capital” was defined as a physical capital or a “stock” [a fixed quantity in time and space] of “things” that had been produced specifically in order to produce something else for profitable exchange[2] . And finally, since physical capital was defined as the central ingredient of economic growth, which was seen as almost equivalent to economic development, obviously then, the owners and/or controllers of capital, capitalists and managers, were seen as central players or originators of economic growth and development.

When I asked some basic questions in class, I was often given a blank stare by the professors: What capital (machines, tools etc) can think or plan its own use or fix itself when it breaks down? If capital and land make operative and productive the capabilities and potential of labor, why is the reverse also not true—that labor makes operative and productive the capabilities and potential of capital and land? If a given machine is involved in production and productivity, why should the owners or controllers of that machine (who are often themselves deeply in debt and do not really own that machine free and clear) entitled to grossly disproportionate returns (profits) from the sales of what that machine produces relative to what labor (without which nothing could be produced by any machine and nothing produced by the machines could be bought on a mass level) has been paid? Are all commodities produced by economic growth really good for those who demand them and do they really improve rather than sabotage the quality of life for the average person? These were but some of the questions I posed and to which I still await answers from some of the esteemed professors.
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Then came the 1970s and I was finishing graduate school and began teaching economics. Someone figured it out that no machine, without skilled labor that is able to effectively utilize all the capabilities of it, and, that is able to fix that machine when it breaks down, and, that has the right work ethic and attitudes, will produce much of anything. So this suggests that experience, skill, training and motivation by labor is a critical ingredient in economic growth. There was also now the suggestion that economic growth and development were not synonymous. But what about the central role of capital and the capitalist in economic growth and economic development? The answer was defintional and with some sleight of hand. Since “capital” is defined as any “thing” that is produced and used to produce something else, well, the skills, experience, education and even work attitudes are all “produced” by an educational system as well as family environment, and, they are used to produce something else, so we can just call all those produced and aquired skills, experience and attitudes of labor, all “human capital”; and so the textbooks now began to discuss “human capital” (not labor or skilled labor that had to make the conscious decision and effort to acquire or not acquire, and apply or not apply, those skills) as another critical “factor” in economic growth which was said to be a critical factor (a necessary if not sufficient condition) in overall economic development. The 1970s and 80s passed, as did my years of teaching Economics and other subjects, and then in the late 1980s the textbooks added something new again. Even if you have potentially productive machines and tools (physical capital), and even if you have highly skilled, experienced and motivated workers who know how to get the best out of those machines (human capital), what if those workers have no hope in the future and no reason to be motivated?; what if the workers feel they are being exploited by the system and those who run it?; what if the workers or the capitalists no longer accept the dominant values, beleifs, traditions and myths of the system that cause them to invest, save, get an education, take risks etc? That led to the concept of “social capital”[still barely mentioned in the texts] that refers to institutions that foster trust, hope, cohesion, cooperation, belief in the system, reciprocity, etc and cause people to sacrifice in the present for a possible future, take risks, save, invest and do all those activities critical to economic growth and development.

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The term social capital was first coined in 1916 by L. Judson Hanifan[3] to refer to social networks and institutions/norms of reciprocity (goodwill, fellowship, sympathy and social intercourse) associated with them. Hanifan, by his own admission, employed the term “capital” (anything that has been produced and used to produce—for profitable exchange—something else) to catch the eye--and patronage--of the business community. Hanifan suggested that these social networks and institutions could, on micro as well as macro levels, enhance productivity, competitiveness, employment and income creation, etc. in some of the same ways that physical capital and human capital can, also, produce the same effects.
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Subsequent to Hanifan’s apparent introduction of the term social capital, the term and concept was reintroduced—and partly redefined—at least six times up to the present:

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1) in the 1950s by sociologist John Seeley[4] to refer to ‘memberships in clubs and associations’ that act just like negotiable securities in producing career advancement and tangible returns to individuals;

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2) In the 1960s, by urban economist Jane Jacobs[5] to refer to the collective value and effects of informal neighborhood ties and associations;
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3) in the 1970s by economist Glenn Loury[6] to refer to wider social ties lost by African Americans as one of the legacies of slavery;

4) In the 1980s by social theorist Pierre Bourdieu[7] to refer to the actual or potential resources linked to durable networks of institutionalized relationships of mutual recognition and assistance;
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5) In the mid-1980s by economist Ekkehart Schlicht[8] to refer to the economic value and productivity-enhancing effects of organizations, moral order, cooperation and cohesion;

6) in the late 1980s by James Coleman to refer, as Hanifan[9] had done, to the social arrangements, relationships and institutions creating and shaping the environment or social contexts of education.
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The above-mentioned definitions of social capital are all closely related and narrow in their focus. They focus on immediate relationships—institutionalized or informal—and the networks, and norms of reciprocity that serve as tangible assets and have economic impacts not only on the micro level (personal career advancement, obtaining employment, political influence, personal safety etc) but also on the macro level in terms of enhancing productivity, reducing information and transactions costs, enhancing competitiveness, enhancing community safety and reducing crime, encouraging cooperation, limiting destructive forms/levels of competition. These definitions of social capital are designed to rescue neoclassical economics from the internal contradictions of methodological individualism in that they show how supposedly atomistic and individualistic utility and profit maximizing individuals might be acting cooperatively and obeying social norms and laws, appearing to be socially aware and consciousness individuals, while all the while, only appearing to be social, in order to maximize and attain individual utility and profitability imperatives and goals. It was in this area that John Walsh got the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in Game Theory showing how apparent social cooperation and social consciousness “versus” individual atomistic utility and profit maximization behaviors and activities might not be contradictory.

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Again the focus is on a new form of “capital” as a central ingredient in economic growth and development. In Indigenous societies, social harmony, mutual respect, cooperation, respect for law as well as law worthy of respect, absence of alienation, social cohesion, are all considered essential for collective survival, economic growth and economic development. Reciprocity is considered a virtue on its own and not, as an instrument for or of, personal gain or maximization of individualism and individualistic preferences.

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So the Eurocentric and capitalist-based models of economic growth gradually incorporated and refined five Basic ingredients to economic growth[10] but said little about the concept of sustainability:

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1) Capital Accumulation;

2) Available Resources;
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3) Growth Compatible Institutions (Markets, Property Rights, Monetary Systems, Government Policies and “Proper” Roles of Government);

4) Technology;
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5) Entrepreneurship
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These Eurocentric and capitalist models of economic growth and development basically set up a tautology or circular argument. By defining the goals of economic growth and development as equivalent with those values and goals most common to capitalism (materialism, conspicuous consumption of expanding volumes of goods and services, etc.), by measuring economic growth and development in narrow monetized terms (real GDP per capita with no comment on the types of goods and services making up that GDP or on the social costs of producing and distributing them) and by making, as key ingredients to growth and development, those inputs that are central to capitalism as a system (monetary system, private property rights, markets, profit incentives), we wind up with a virtual tautological equivalence[11] between capitalism and economic growth and development.

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So a society that produces, on the average or per capita (without any allowances for the fact that the de-jure or on paper statistical average per capita may well not represent the typical de-facto situation for the average person due to outliers and de facto asymmetric distributions of incomes, wealth and goods and services) more goods and services, even if those goods and services have corrupting influences as in the case of drugs, pornography, alcohol, tobacco etc, and even if producing those goods and services involves waste of non-renewable resources and massive negative externalities, such a society is said to be experiencing and promoting both economic growth and development according to the Eurocentric and capitalist-based models of growth and development. And this system is seen as a kind of perpetual motion machine with little or no friction: new spending creates new incomes which create new spending creating new incomes (multiplier effects); new incomes and consumption spending create new jobs, tax revenues, savings leading to new investment spending (multiplier and accelerator effects) leading to even more incomes and multiplier effects etc.; the so-called “Virtuous Upward Spiral”.
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This is but one example of one of the new growth theories:

(From: Parkin, Michael, Macroeconomics 7th Edition, Pearson, Addison-Wesley, Instructor’s Resource Disk, Chapter 7, Reprinted Under Fair Use Doctrine for Educational and Scholarly Exchange purposes only.)

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Now here are some other models that illustrate the typical Indigenous views of survival, development (seen to be about more than economics) and sustainability that differ markedly from those typical of Western, Eurocentric and in particular capitalist economies. The economy is seen as an inseparable part of the total society. Present-day activities are always with the Seventh future generation and sustainability in mind. Spirituality is seen as a key ingredient in both social stability and development. The types of goods and services and their impacts and implications on the survival of the culture, along with the true costs of producing and distributing them are considered critical factors in the basic decisions of What, How and For Whom to produce and distribute the means of subsistence.

Core Values

Western(Capitalist) vs. Indigenous[12]

Competition vs. Harmony
Materialism vs. Prudence
Acquisition vs. Reciprocity
Accumulation vs. Distribution
Ownership vs. Kinship
Growth vs. Sustainability
Immediacy vs. Caring for Future Generations
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These core values of course do not represent the values of all members of each group held and practiced respectively, but are meant to represent and convey fair generalizations of some of the different traditions and core values celebrated in the literature and traditions of the respective systems and cultures—Eurocentric and capitalist vs. Indigenous and communalist—that are typically presented and advocated by their advocates and adherents. It is very clear from the internal documents of the U.S. and Canadian Governments, as well as from the internal documents, diaries and memoirs of the missionaries and “Indian Agents”, that the core and defining values, institutions, practices, priorities, relationships and other dimensions of the culture of Indigenous nations, were not simply regarded and dismissed as “inferior” or backward; rather, they were first and foremost regarded as direct challenges (without any evangelical intentions by Indigenous Peoples to do so) to the core values, practices, relations, theologies and institutions—cultures—of capitalism and those of the settlers. Just as some capitalist nations have regarded the mere existence of socialism and socialist values as an existential threat, without any alleged overt or covert acts of aggression by socialist social formations like China, so Indigenous cultures and systems, with definite communalist and non-capitalist practices and values, were regarded as existential threats and banned. Even many Indigenous prayers, with communalist values, were seen as a threat to cultures—and interests—built on capitalism. Here are but two of many examples from the archives of the Department of Indian Affairs in Canada and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the U.S. that show the real nature and intentions of their policies. For example, in many traditional societies, there is the sacred practice of “Potlatch” or “Give Aways” (Blackfoot) in which prized personal possessions are given away; they are not, by the way forms of “gambling” or “lotteries”. These ceremonies are designed to teach: the transient nature of all material possessions; not to become a slave to personal possessions; community spirit; compassion and that happiness of others is more important than individualistic and selfish desires and possessions. These traditional values are decidedly not consistent with market-based economies that are commonly based upon—often celebrated in elements of their social capital—greed, selfishness, ultra-individualism, competition, materialism, acquisitiveness, competition, narcissism and the logic of profits-for-power-and-power-for-profits. That the conflicting core values, relationships and institutions of traditional Indigenous societies were in direct conflict with—and seen not co-exist with—those of market-based societies was seen early on in U.S. and Canadian histories. For example:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Office of Indian Affairs-Washington
Supplement to Circular No. 1665 February 14, 1923
Indian Dancing
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To Superintendents:

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At a conference in October, 1922, of the missionaries of the several religious denominations represented in the Sioux country, the following recommendations were adopted and have been courteously submitted to this office:

1. That the Indian form of gambling[sic] and lottery[sic] known as the "ituranpi" (translated "Give Away") be prohibited.
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2. That the Indian dances be limited to one in each month in the daylight hours of one day in the midweek, and at one center in each district; the months of March and April, June, July, and August be excepted.

3. That none take part in the dances or be present who are under 50 years of age.
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4. That a careful propaganda be undertaken to educate public opinion against the dance and to provide a healthy substitute.

5. That there be close cooperation between the Government employees and the missionaries in those matters which affect the moral welfare of Indians.
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…After a conscientious study of the dance situation in his jurisdiction, the efforts of every superintendent must persistently encourage and emphasize the Indian's attention to these political, useful, thrifty, and orderly activities that are indispensable to his well-being and that underlie the preservation of his race in the midst of complex and highly competitive conditions.

The instinct of individual enterprise and devotion to the posterity and elevation of family life should in some way be made paramount in every Indian household to the exclusion of idleness, waste of time at frequent gatherings of whatever nature, and the neglect of physical resources upon which depend food, clothings[sic] , shelter, and the very beginnings of progress. [13]
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"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating[sic] so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the FINAL SOLUTION OF OUR INDIAN PROBLEM." [14]
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And it is more than irony that the term “Final Solution of ‘our’ the Indian Problem” in the DIA memo of D.C. Scott is the exactly language used by the Nazis as in “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”. The Alberta Sterilization Act of 1928[15], and the Eugenics Laws of 27 states of the U.S. were specifically cited by the German Nazis as the direct “inspirations” for their own 1933 Race Hygiene Law and 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws.”[16] According to John Toland, biographer of Adolf Hitler:

Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa And for the Indians in the Wild West; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination-by starvation and uneven combat-of the 'Red Savages' who could not be tamed by captivity.[17]

And from an internal document of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs:
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"Set the blood-quantum at one-quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed, and eventually Indians will be defined out of existence. When that happens, the federal government will finally be freed from its persistent Indian problem."[18]

Thus it has been made clear by the U.S. and Canadian governments that Indigenous institutions, values and practices, Indigenous cultures and systems, are considered not only as “existential threats” to their own orders, institutions and values, but are considered fundamentally inconsistent with what they define as economic growth and development and the fundamental conditions and ingredients necessary for economic growth and overall development.
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Now let’s explore the model of Indigenous development and sustainability given below. The first thing that must be noticed is the four points of the model that correspond with the four primary directions of the compass: North, or Control of Assets; East, or Spirituality; South, or Kinship; and West, or Personal Efficacy. These imperatives are considered fundamental to overall development and sustainability in Indigenous terms.
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(click on picture to enlarge)
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Why are these four[19] core values and imperatives considered fundamental to development and sustainability in Indigenous terms? There is an old saying that sums it up: “It is better to know where to go and not know how, than to know how to go and not know where.” Technology, “Capital” even “land” and “Labor”, are part of the how to go and not where to go. Without Sovereignty and Control of Assets and critical resources, without Vision informed by Spirituality[20] , without Kinship and healthy families and Clans and Bands, without Personal Efficacy (health and viability) of individuals, no nation, especially one surrounded by hostile forces that consider its mere existence a “threat” of some sort, will grow, develop or even survive and be sustained. This is no different for China than it is for any Indigenous society and vice-versa. Since its inception in 1949, the People’s Republic of China, with its own sovereign and socialist institutions and roads to growth, development and sustainability with Chinese characteristics, has been: encircled; threatened with nuclear annihilation; attacked internally by secessionist and separatist forces acting as proxies for foreign powers; hit with repeated embargos and denials of critical technologies and goods and services; slandered, demonized and isolated among the community of nations . [21]

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Social systems engineering, to which all Indigenous nations, along with socialist nations like China have been subject, involves putting targeted nations under such siege from external and internal pressures that have been manufactured and/or exacerbated, that the targeted nation winds up in a straight jacket, forced to divert precious scarce resources into defense and away from development and sustainability, that the targeted nation appears to “conform”, and thus the “proof” has been engineered, of the caricatures that have been made of that targeted nation: “backward”; “repressive”; “inefficient”; “undemocratic”; “stagnant”[22] etc. But in a fair fight, or peaceful competition between systems, socialism beats capitalism any day, even in terms of capitalism’s own definitions and measurements of “efficiency”, just as traditional Indigenous societies beat modern-day assimilated BIA-DIA controlled and capitalist influenced Indigenous societies, in terms of all the requisite ingredients to development and sustainability shown in the traditional Indigenous model of development and sustainability, any day. That is why they were put under siege with their core institutions and values slandered, demonized and marginalized historically and in the present: in a fair and peaceful competition between systems, socialism beats capitalism, as Traditional ways are far superior, even in terms of levels of science and technology, than what has become of Indigenous societies in North America and elsewhere under capitalism and “modernity.” [23]
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This is why I have urged young Chinese students who ask me about getting to go to school in the West to consider that they have some very fine teachers and schools in China and I have urged them, as a foreigner, not to worship things foreign. I have given the metaphor that if I were given a basic test of Economics in Mandarin, which I do not read, write or speak, it would appear that I know nothing of economics even though I have taught it over thirty years. This is only because I have been given a test and criteria of “success” that were designed and intended for me to fail and thus my “failure” and “proof” of my lack of knowledge of economics were “engineered” by those with the power to do so. The same holds for Indigenous societies put under siege by colonial and imperial powers to engineer the “proof” of their supposed “backwardness”, “stagnation” lack of “civilization”, etc; and thus my advice to Indigenous students, who seek capitalist “civilization” and “progress” away from Traditional Ways, is the same as my advice to Chinese students seeking supposed “advanced education” in the West: perhaps take a good look at, and then appreciate, what you have right in front of you.

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Notice in the Indigenous model of development and sustainability the focus is not on conquering or subduing nature but in working in harmony with nature. In Indigenous terms there is no such thing as Humankind versus Nature or the Environment as whenever humankind works against, or tries to conquer, the forces of that of which humankind is an integral part—“Nature”—then “Nature” is destined to win the battle as is evidenced by present-day global climate change and a whole host of threats to the planet that come from capitalist greed, myopia and disrespect for that—environment—of which humankind is an integral part of a delicate web of life froms and matter. Notice also that “Hope”, “Future Orientation”, “Cultural Integrity”, “Social Respect” and “Civic Participation”, all the elements of the overall construct of “social capital” to which modern-day Economics is only beginning to mention as critical to growth and devleopment, has been a part of Traditional Indigenous thinking for thousands of years. Notice in the Indigenous model, the focus on Health and Safety, on Vibrant Initiatives, and on individuals taking “Personal Responsibility” for the “Consequences” of their actions, in addition to “Incomes” (how they are earned and used), “Productivity” and “Trade” as critical to development and sustainability. The Indigenous model includes, holistically, factors that are clearly critical to development and sustainability and yet are nowhere to be found and/or are only newly-emerging, in the Western and capitalist-based models of growth, development and sustainability.

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Here is another Indigenous model of development and sustainability that manifests the some of same concepts and constructs:
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(Source: Sustainomics and Sustainable Development—adapted from Munasinghe 1992, 1994 Reprinted under Fair Use for Educational and Academic Exchange Purposes Only)
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The warning against abuse of Nature and all that humankind is an integral part of has come from Indigenous Peoples over many years. Chief Sealth, of the Dwamish and Suquamish nations gave the following warning to U.S. President Franklin Pierce in 1855:

" The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. How can you buy or sell the sky--the warmth of the land. The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.

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We know that the White Man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his father's graves and his children's birthright is forgotten.

There is no quiet place in the White Man's cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps because I am savage and do not understand--the clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man[sic] cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of a frog around the pond at night.
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The Whites too, shall pass--perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses tamed the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket. Gone. Where is the eagle. Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt. The end of living and the beginning of survival. " [24]
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Chief Sealth 1855

I once gave a lecture at Tsinghua University entitled Socialism versus Capitalism: Which Will Win? I answered the central question of the lecture that I do not know which will win; but I do know which must win for the planet and humankind to survive: Socialism (and some Traditional Indigenous values that closely parallel socialist values). Capitalism, simply, has destroyed and will destroy this planet.

Footnotes

[1] Externalities are costs or benefits that accrue to society as a result of private or public transactions and activities by individuals or entities within that society. Environmental destruction, social alienation, citizen cynicism and distrust are all examples of negative externalities with social costs, that result and “spillover” on society from private or public activities. Externalities can also be positive such as the health benefits on many people from use of a public park or perhaps a private gymnasium. In “mainstream” neoclassical economic theory, without the very government intervention that they neoclassical economists often decry, there is a tendency for unregulated markets, coupled with greed and competitive imperatives, to cause less than all the true (private plus social) costs to be assessed and paid by those causing them and less than the true benefits (private plus social) to be assessed and paid by those receiving them. Thus unregulated markets tend to over-production and under-pricing when negative externalities are present, and under-production and under-pricing when positive externalities are present.

[2] Capital is usually defined as any “thing” that has been produced specifically in order to produce something else. But capital is also a social relation in the sense that under capitalism and private property, those who own and/or control capital are, by virtue of their ownership and control, able to hire and fire and make basic decisions about the use or non-use, employment or non-employment of that capital while those who labor, who have nothing to sell but their labor power or capacity to work, are, by virtue of their lack of ownership and/or control of capital, the ones who are the hired and fired and the ones whose ability to sell their labor power is dependent upon the decisions of those who own and/or control the capital. Capital stands in relation to and is defined by Labor and vice-versa.

[3] Hanifan, Lyda Judson, “The Rural School Community Center”, Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, 67 (1916): pp. 130-138. Note: An excellent overview of the development of the concept of social capital, for which I am indebted, can be found in: Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon and Schuster, N.Y. 2000 and also in Putnam, Robert D (ed), Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society, Oxford University Press, N.Y. 2002

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[4] Seeley, John R, Sim, Alexander and Loosley, Elizabeth; Crestwood Heights: A Study of the Culture of Suburban Life, Basic Books, N.Y. 1956

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[5] Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Random House, N.Y. 1961

[6] Loury, Glenn, “A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences” in Women, Minorities and Employment Discrimination, Wallace, P.A. and LeMund, A (eds), Lexington Books, Lexington Mass. 1977
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[7] Bourdieu, Pierre, “Forms of Capital” in Handbook of Theory and Research for The Sociology of Education Richardson, John (Ed), Greenwood Books, N.Y. 1983
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[8] Schlicht, Ekkehart, “Cognitive Dissonance in Economics” in Normengeleitetes Verhalten in den Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker and Humblot, Berlin, 1984
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[9] Coleman, James, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital” in American Journal of Sociology, 94 (1988)

[1o] See Colander, David, Economics 7th Edition, Power point slide 24-15, McGraw-Hill, N.Y. 2006; quote of Edward Denison who saw U.S. economic growth 1928-2005 as a function of 4 basic sources: Physical Capital 19%; Human Capital 13%; Labor 33% and Technology 35%

[11] A Tautology is a circular argument or definition. Examples include “Science is what scientists do and scientists are those who do science.” Or, science is that which builds upon a foundation of what was generally regarded by a community of scientists as science.” Here by defining as economic growth and development what is in essence central to capitalism and its survival (conspicuous consumption of ever expanding material goods and services per capita) and by defining as essential to achieving economic growth and development that which is defining in capitalism (production of commodities by means of commodities, markets, property rights, wage labor) we wind up with a tautology that capitalism = economic growth and development and/or only capitalism can best and most efficiently promote and achieve economic growth and development.

[12] Adapted from Seib, Rebecca, “Culturally Appropriate Community Economic Development: Aboriginal Land Development Conference”, June 22-25, 2004, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan under Fair Use Doctrine.

[13] Long Standing Bear Chief, “Ni Kso Ko Wa: Blackfoot Traditions and Spirituality” pp. 8-9, Spirit Talk Press, Browning, Montana, 1992

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[14] Department of Indian Affairs, Superintendent D.C. Scott to B.C. Indian Agent-General Major D. McKay, DIA Archives, RG-10 series, April 12, 1910 (emphasis added)

[15] The 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, to which Canada became a signatory in 1953 and to which the U.S. still remains not a full signatory because of the Hatch, Helms and Lugar “Sovereignty Amendment of 1988, in Article II defines a five-part test, any one of which, not all required to constitutes genocide: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting upon a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures designed to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of one group to another group.
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[16] Black, Edwin, “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” Thunder’s Mouth Press N.Y. 2003; Alberta Sterilization Victims Also Used as Guinea Pigs Revelation Comes as 40 victims win $4M settlement; Marina Jimenez National Post 10/28/98

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[17] Toland, John, “Adolf Hitler”, Vol II, p. 802, Doubleday and Co. N.Y. 1976
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[18] Limerick, Patricia Nelson, “The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of American West” WW. Norton and Co. N.Y. 1987 p. 338

[19] In most Indigenous cultures, the number four is not merely a quantity or cardinal magnitude, without quality or force as in many Eurocentric cultures (four of what?); it has its own power, symbolism and force giving it quality in addition to quantity. The number four stands for: the four principle directions of the compass (North, South, East and West); the four principle colors of the human family (Black White Red and Yellow); the four forms of balance that all humans must seek to survive and prosper (Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual); the four basic elements of Nature (Wind, Fire, Earth and Water). In this model, there are four basic dimensions of development and sustainability that illustrate the dialectical unity of the macro and the micro levels of existence: control of assets and kinship (macro) and personal efficacy and spirituality (micro).

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[20] In most Indigenous cultures, “Spirituality” (more an individual matter) is differentiated from religion which is about organized dogma and rituals shared by a community of the religious. “Spirituality” means being guided by the “spirit” of something transcendent and beyond oneself. When indigenous people refer to “spirit” they are referring to the potential energy (as specified in the four laws of thermodynamics) embodied in all things and thus one reason why Indigenous peoples do not differentiate “animate” and “inanimate” aspects of the cosmos.
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[21] The so-called Republic of China or Taiwan is currently only recognized by 23 nation states including the Vatican, as the supposed “legitimate government” of all of China whereas up until the 1970s, the reality and legitimacy of the People’s Republic of China as the sole and legitimate government of all of China was denied except by a handful of nations yet the objective reality of and international law supporting, the PRC as the sole and legitimate representative of the whole nation of China was never in question by any honest and thinking person or government.

[22] For example: "I don’ t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." (Henry Kissinger); "Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty." (Edward M. Korry, U.S. Ambassador to Chile, upon hearing of Allende"s election) "Make the economy scream [in Chile to] prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him"(Richard Nixon, orders to CIA director Richard Helms on September 15, 1970) "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden..." (A communiqué to the CIA base in Chile, issued on October 16, 1970.) Also quoted in :Neoclassical Economics and Neo-liberalism as Neo-Imperialism” by James Craven/Omahkohkiaayo I’poyi, Lecture to Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, August 11, 2009, Beijing, China.
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[23] See: Weatherford, Jack, “Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America”, Fawcett Columbine, N.Y. 1991;”Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World 1988; “Savages and Civilization: Who Will Survive?” 1994. Peat, F. David “Blackfoot Physics”, Weiser Books, Boston, 2002 pp 191, 193-96, 216

[24] This was based on a translation of a speech by Chief Sealth from Suquamish into Chinook jargon and then into English. Its authenticity has been questioned and that of Chief Sealth only on the basis that he sounded “too articulate” to be the real author and that “thus” it “must have been” written by a screenwriter.

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