Friends, Here's the latest version of Ch 2, following feedback from several reviewers. The biggest change from the previous version is the incorporation of ideas from Riane Eisler and Laurence Gardner. Further feedback is always welcome. all the best, rkm _____________________________________________ Chapter 2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANITY (c) 2005 Richard K. Moore * Natural evolution: competition within a cooperative web When I first learned in school about Darwin and evolution, the lesson could be summed up in the phrases, "the survival of the fittest" and "the law of the jungle." The strong lion lived; the weak lion died. The strong caveman got the nice cave and beautiful woman; the weak caveman got the leftovers. With the strongest surviving and having the most offspring, in a constant competitive struggle, the quality of species kept improving, and eventually the level of Homo sapiens was attained. I never thought to question this simplistic characterization of Darwin's ideas, because it seemed to make perfect sense. It turns out, however, that this just isn't how things work. For example, lions in a pride work together as a team: they hunt cooperatively, share their food, and they look out for one another. When male lions compete for leadership of a pride, we see the simplistic dynamics of genetic competition operating -- but that is only one part, an occasional episode, in the life of a lion pride. In fact, it is the cooperative and social nature of the pride which in part explains the widespread success of the lion in comparison to other, less social, predator species. It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that scientists began to study environments as a whole -- as ecosystems -- and to look at biology generally from a systems perspective. Once scientists looked at the real world, rather than just theorizing around the presumption of competition, they found that nature is characterized much more by cooperation than by competition. Indeed, if we seek a simple phrase to characterize our new understanding -- to contrast with "survival of the fittest" -- it might be "survival of those who fit in best." In the case of the lion pride we see an obvious example of cooperation -- conscious collaboration among sentient mammals -- whose shared thrill on making a kill is perhaps not that different than that of a soccer team on scoring a goal. But the principle of cooperation in nature goes much deeper, involving the relationship between plant and animal species within the context of their environment. Those species that fit in best -- within the overall system of biological exchange -- are the ones that have the best chance of surviving. If a predator species is too greedy for example, and kills off its prey, then it won't survive. A colorful example of cooperation can be found in the case of a certain plant, which is pollinated only by a single species of insect, and that insect in turn can only survive if it has access to that plant. They are each other's life support system -- the two species have a mutually-beneficial symbiotic relationship. Another interesting example has to do with the relationship between deer and their predators. Predators always go for the weakest or slowest individual, and this selective culling serves to maintain the health of the herd. When deer are free of predators, as when they live in some kind of protected area, the herd soon begins to deteriorate through disease. An ecosystem is in some sense an invention of the observer. We can look at the whole Earth as one ecosystem or we can focus our attention on just a pond in a forest, or anywhere in between. But at whatever scale we might look, we find an interplay among species that can in many ways be compared to the economy of a community. In a community people do different jobs, some producing what others consume, and their collective exchanges are the economy of the community. We may only occasionally feel like we are "cooperating," as we go about our daily business, but every time we go into a shop and find it open and stocked as usual, we are participating in a symbiotic relationship with the shopkeeper -- and both of us are cooperating in the larger endeavor of "keeping our community operating." Similarly, in an ecosystem, different species play different roles, some being consumed by others, and their collective "exchanges" are the life-flow of the ecosystem. The ways in which cooperation occurs are not always so simple as that between a shopkeeper and customer. There can be a whole loop of exchanges, all of which together make up a symbiotic system. This is what we are referring to when we talk about the food chain. Richard Dawkins invites us to look at evolution at the level of the selfish gene*. Most of us are more accustomed to thinking of evolution in terms of evolving species. Those are both useful perspectives, but what may actually be more illuminating is to think in terms of evolving ecosystems. In a rainforest, for example, there are thousands of species of plants, animals, birds and insects -- with countless and complex interconnecting relationships -- all of which add up to a vibrant, vital flow of life. Such a complex system evolves over many eons, each species co-evolving along with it, prey species getting faster, predator species getting more cunning, fruit species becoming more tasty to the seed-spreading creatures, etc. When we think in terms of species, the "goal" (i.e., tendency) of evolution seems clear: a species evolves toward being more successful, more able to obtain its food, more able to care for its young, etc. But what is the "goal" of ecosystem evolution? In what "direction" does an ecosystem tend, as it gets more refined and complex? There are perhaps different measuring rods which might be relevant to this question, but there is one that seems to be most fitting. The tendency of an ecosystem, assuming no drastic changes in environmental conditions, is toward maximizing the overall life activity within the system*. As an ecosystem evolves over time, the amount of life activity going on per acre tends to increase, limited only by the life-support resources available. When plenty of sunshine, water, and fertile soil are available -- as in a rainforest -- then we see how far this evolutionary process is able to go. The amount of life in one acre of rainforest, from beneath the soil to the tops of the trees, is staggering*. The rainforest can be seen as a pinnacle of ecosystem evolution. Similarly, in terms of the evolution of commerce, we might say the economy of New York City is a pinnacle. Both are examples of very complex systems, with all sorts of cooperative synergies and interconnections operating, all of which co-evolved over time. And just as a large city achieves a maximum in the quantity of economic exchanges per acre, so a rainforest achieves a maximum in life activity per acre. As each system evolved, both cooperation and competition played a role. The big wheel of evolution is cooperation: the evolving web of mutually beneficial interactions, enabling ever greater productivity per acre. The smaller wheel of evolution is competition: where players compete to occupy the most desirable niches in the evolving system. The overall tendency in both cases is toward greater cooperative efficiency. Competition, in each case, plays a supplementary tuning role, rewarding favorable adaptations within the evolving cooperative system -- i.e.,. rewarding those who "fit in best." * The nature of primordial societies Although life systems are pervaded by webs of cooperation, some species exhibit more overtly cooperative behavior than others. A Cheetah lives and hunts alone, sometimes supporting cubs; lions and dogs live and hunt in family groups. Among the most social and cooperative of the animal kingdom are the monkeys and apes. Thus our ancestors had been highly social and cooperative for millions of years prior to becoming distinctly human. We started out as cooperative bands, much like chimpanzee or baboon troops today. As we began to find our own evolutionary path, we developed increased capacities for cooperation. Perhaps the most significant of these new capacities was that for complex language. As intelligence and linguistic capacity increased, enabling more complex languages to develop, early humans could plan out hunting expeditions, discuss strategy and compare experiences, talk over the pros and cons of migrating to a new territory, etc. Language, as an adaptive trait, can be seen as a tool designed to maximize the effectiveness and flexibility of cooperation within the band. We can perhaps now see how thoroughly wrong is the simplistic Darwinian characterization of evolution, as expressed in the common phrases, "survival of the fittest," or "law of the jungle." A jungle, in fact, is much the same as a rain forest -- a pinnacle of cooperative synergy. Based on archeological evidence, in particular skeletal and DNA remains, it seems that we have been fully human for something like 100,000 years, although as usual, experts differ over the precise dating*. In any case, people have been just like us for a very, very long time -- before any kind of civilization came along. If a human infant could be brought across time from that far back, and be adopted into a modern family, he or she would grow up speaking today's language and be in every way a typical modern person. We can be sure there have been many individuals -- throughout the span of this whole period -- with the same capacity for genius as a Mozart or Einstein. Archeological evidence conclusively indicates that for almost all of these 100,000 years -- excepting only about the past 10,000 -- we have all lived in small, hunter-gatherer bands. But archeology can give us very little detail about what our primordial societies were like, or how our bands made decisions back in the early days. In order to gain insight into what those societies must have been like, we need to look elsewhere. History is no help, because written language was not invented until a society had already reached the early stages of civilization. We can learn a lot, however, by looking at those hundreds or perhaps thousands of indigenous societies that have been observed and studied over the past few centuries of European expansionism. Anthropologists have surveyed the many indigenous societies that have been observed and written about by witnesses, and they have gone out and studied still-existing societies in the field directly, They have found an amazing diversity and variety of languages, cultures, systems of beliefs, diets, and economic lifestyles. By combining these observations with what we can learn from archeological investigations, anthropologists have found that societies tend to evolve through certain predictable stages as they adopt new technologies, and as they become larger and more complex. In some cases, as with the Incas in Peru, the Europeans found complex civilizations that had evolved independently from Europe, and had gone through the stages of chiefdom, kingship, and finally emperor-divinity. In other cases they found agricultural and herding-based societies, operating under various social systems, usually based on tribal and clan relationships. And in many cases they found societies that were still operating on a hunter-gathering basis -- living examples of primordial societies. Anthropologists have observed a large number of universally shared characteristics in these remaining primordial societies (although they have needed to make allowances when looking at cases where such societies engage in exchange with more "advanced" societies.) Every such society has a complex language, capable of abstract and imaginative expression. Every such society has its own culture, supported by mythologies, beliefs, taboos, and stories which are passed down orally from generation to generation. In this way mores, history, discovered knowledge, and adaptive behaviors are preserved and reinforced in the culture. Frequently poetic, rhythmic, and musical forms are employed--which aid greatly in preserving intact the oral cultural heritage through the generations. Typically there is a creation story in which some kind of spirits or gods lay down the foundation of the cultural beliefs and explain the society's place in the world. Every such society, except those going through some kind of adaptive transitional phase, lives sustainably in its environment. Although the observed mythologies are very diverse, they all place humanity within the context of nature, as part of nature, with a kind of spiritual responsibility to live in harmony with nature. The members of every such society cooperate systematically in their economic endeavors -- mostly hunting, foraging, and territorial defense -- with culturally specified roles for different ages and sexes. Every such society is egalitarian, apart from gender and age differentiation, and decisions tend to be made by consensus based on open dialog -- with no individual or clique being given the power to decide for the group. There may be "chiefs," selected for their wisdom and knowledge, but they hunt and gather along with everyone else, and they have no authority to command others. Such societies exhibit territorial behavior, each group typically wandering over a particular area, following the diet opportunities as the seasons change and local areas become depleted. Although communication and exchange occur among neighboring groups, territories are defended against intruders and a pattern of relatively stable territorial niches is generally maintained. These patterns shift from time to time, as changing conditions cause some groups to migrate -- and more aggressive groups sometimes displace other groups -- but on a day-to-day basis each group has its own territory, within which it finds its collective livelihood. We know that people have been basically the same for 100,000 years, in terms of their innate capacities and tendencies. We know that all observed hunter-gatherer societies share certain characteristics -- and the "sample size" of such societies is large. With this knowledge, I suggest that we can reasonably assume that for nearly all of the past 100,000 years, apart from the past 10,000, all humans have lived in societies with these same characteristics. If there is any meaning at all in the notions of humanity's "natural state" or of "human nature," then surely we must look for that meaning in the context of these primordial societies and their social structures. For most of our time as humans we have lived in cooperative, egalitarian bands; we have been collectively responsible for our 7own survival on a local basis, and we have inherited shared belief systems that have sustained our cultures and reinforced our successful environmental adaptations. To some extent such an existence is "home" for us; it is our native "comfort zone." This is why we experience so much anxiety and stress in our gigantic modern societies where we are anonymous cogs in a machine, where we have mostly lost any sense of being part of a supportive community, and where our cultures are fragmented into competing religions and ideologies. * Cultural evolution: stability within adaptability Animals are born with most of their behavior patterns already hard-wired in. Humans, on the other hand, learn their behavior patterns -- and their culture generally -- as they grow up in their society. Just as a fox or lion inherits instincts that make them efficient hunters, instincts that evolved over the eons, so early humans inherited a culture that enabled them to efficiently use their territory -- a culture that had evolved over many generations. A primordial culture is finely tuned to its own local environment -- as are the instincts of an animal species to the requirements of its evolved niche. But whereas animal behaviors typically change only on a time scale of millions of years or more, human cultures can evolve over thousands or even hundreds of years. When a group migrated to a new kind of territory, for example, it could typically learn all the useful plants, and the patterns of the local animals, within a single century.* This ability to rapidly adapt to new circumstance enabled early human societies to spread out from their original primate habitats and occupy a wide variety of niches. We soon left the other species behind like so many frozen statues in a pastoral tableau. Lions are still doing exactly what they were doing before humans came along. Meanwhile, humans spread out over whole continents, from tropical deserts to the polar regions, evolving complex, specialized cultures suitable to each kind of environment that was encountered. The loss of innate specialization, as a biologically inherited characteristic, represents one of the most significant biological distinctions between humans and other species -- ranking right up there with complex linguistic capacity. On the one hand, de-specialization enabled us to inhabit nearly the whole globe, aided by our ability to discuss and share our discoveries and experiences. On the other hand, it has made us particularly dependent on our societies and inherited cultures for our survival. Whereas a mixed group of lions from different prides could be released into an available territory -- and they might be expected to form successful new prides -- a mixed group of humans from different primordial groups would find it very difficult to spontaneously organize themselves and survive in a strange environment -- even if they could communicate in some common language. Although from a long-range perspective cultural evolution is characterized by its adaptability, primordial cultures tend to exhibit remarkable stability over very long periods -- when environmental conditions don't change much and there are no significant intrusions by other societies. Cultural stability is a desirable survival trait: it serves to preserve the adaptive knowledge the group has gained over the generations. This cultural stability is facilitated by the fact that children are highly impressionable. If a primordial child, or a modern child for that matter, is told repeatedly by trusted adults that a certain mountain is the home of a certain god, with a certain agenda, the child will typically take that on board as absolute, literal truth. The child learns its culture not as a set of facts to remember; rather the culture is absorbed as the child's model of reality: what the world is all about, what the role of society is in the world, and how people are supposed to behave. The more this model is reinforced through social interactions, the more deeply embedded it becomes in the child's mind. When the child becomes an adult, he or she simply "knows" that the cultural beliefs are "the truth." The adult would no more question these beliefs than a devout Christian would question the existence of God. As a consequence, the adults of a primordial society tend to pass on their culture to their children exactly as they themselves learned it. As children, they were too impressionable to question the culture, and as adults they don't question it because they "know it's true." In addition, coherent stories, poems, images, and songs provide a reliable mechanism for passing on cultural details unchanged. Hence primordial cultures tend to remain remarkably stable until new adaptations are required, or new opportunities arise, due to some significant change in circumstances. * Origins of civilization: inside and outside the Garden For nearly all of the past 100,000 years, all of us humans lived in egalitarian, cooperative, hunter-gatherer societies like the ones described above. Then, about 10,000 years ago, some societies began to systematically domesticate plants and animals as a means of food production. This shift from hunting-gathering, and its aftermath, are known as the "agricultural revolution." Rather than opportunistically harvesting what nature naturally produces, some societies were now beginning to manage the production process themselves. The eventual consequences of this revolution were profound, bringing about fundamental changes in the economies and social structures of societies, and leading eventually to the development of civilization as we know it. The first societies to move beyond hunter-gathering were in the area known as the Fertile Crescent, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present day Iraq. These societies were more complex than their primordial predecessors, but for the first few thousand years -- according to the archeological evidence -- they were peaceful and their social structures continued to be egalitarian and cooperative. They worshipped nurturing, feminine deities; women had equal roles in society along with men; their art does not portray battles or conquests. Riane Eisler, in "The Chalice and the Blade," uses the term "partnership societies" to refer to these earliest agricultural societies.* Meanwhile on the Russian steppes another kind of post-hunter-gatherer society was developing, based on nomadic herding and horsemanship. These were male-dominated warrior societies, with strong chiefs. The archeological evidence reveal that human sacrifice was practiced, warrior deities were worshipped, and that chiefs were buried with impressive caches of weapons. Eisler places these societies in the category of "dominator societies." These two paths both make a certain kind of sense, each in their own context. In a settled agricultural society, there is considerable incentive to maintain peace and harmony. Warlike activity would take resources away from food production, and conflicts could lead to the destruction of crops, food-stores, and dwellings, Agricultural pursuits and settled communities thrive best in a climate of stability -- "partnership virtues" would provide a survival advantage. With nomadic herding, on the other hand -- particularly with horses as attack vehicles -- the dynamics are different. Such nomadic groups are accustomed to being on the move, rather than being settled, and they would presumably be competing regularly with other nomadic groups for the best grazing areas and water sources -- and in bad years these might be scarce and hard-fought for. One might expect "warrior virtues" and "strong leadership" to provide a competitive advantage to societies in such a context. Up until about 4400 BC it appears that these two strains of social evolution developed mostly apart from one another. While the nomadic dominator groups expanded in the steppes regions, the partnership strain spread out from the Fertile Crescent into Europe -- and led to the development of the earliest civilizations. I quote here from Eisler (p. 13), who refers to these partnership societies as the "Civilization of Old Europe": Between circa 7000 and 3500 B.C.E. these early Europeans developed a complex social organization involving craft specialization. They created complex religious and governmental institutions. They used metals such as copper and gold for ornaments and tools. They even evolved what appears to be a rudimentary script. In Gimbuta's words "If one defines civilization as the ability of a given people to adjust to its environment and to develop adequate arts, technology, script, and social relationships it is evident that Old Europe achieved a marked degree of success." The nomadic dominator groups, based on the archeological evidence, did not create any civilizations on their own. Their development involved instead the refinement of their methods of warfare, and the rise of chiefs of chiefs -- the emergence of larger hierarchical social structures. What seems to have happened around 4400 BC was the same phenomenon we saw later in the twelfth century, with the rise of Genghis Khan. In both cases an unusually strong leader arose within a warlike nomadic culture, and he managed to unify under his command a sizable population behind the mission of invading and looting agricultural-based societies. It was such a Kurgan chief from the steppes of western Asia who must have led the first invasion against the partnership-based agricultural societies in the fertile crescent. Some initial raids may have been limited to looting and pillaging, but eventually what happened is that the warlike tribes took command of the more civilized societies, retaining the agricultural methods, but imposing their own authority structures. Thus hierarchical civilization seems to have arisen as a hybrid between these two cultural strains: the partnership strain contributed the civilizing technologies and the slaves to till the soil; the dominator strain contributed the ruling hierarchy and the dominator culture. The earliest hierarchical civilizations were characterized not only by hierarchy, but also by a class distinction between the conquerors and the conquered -- a kind of nobility and peasantry, a warrior class and a toiler class. From paintings on pottery, frescoes, and eventually from written records, we can trace the changes in mythologies that occurred as partnership civilizations were conquered by dominator societies. What we typically find is that the mythologies of the earlier partnership societies were not totally abandoned, but were rather reinterpreted, and overlaid with new gods and beliefs. Hybrid mythologies were developed which served the purpose of legitimizing and reinforcing the new regime. Sometimes a female goddess from the partnership pantheon would continue in the new mythology, but she would be shown in a subservient role to the new warrior male gods, one of which would typically be supreme over the whole pantheon. In this way male dominance and subservience to hierarchy were portrayed as being part of the divine order. In the Old Testament's "Garden of Eden" story we can see an example of this process of mythological reinterpretation and cultural overlaying. The garden itself can be seen as the pre-existing partnership society, and indeed the serpent was typically a central mythological symbol in those early agricultural civilizations. In the biblical story we see the entrance of a new male god onto the stage, one who holds absolute sovereignty, and who denounces the once-revered serpent as being an agent of evil and deception. The hybrid myth "explains" to people why they must give up their old beliefs and loyalties and adopt the new ones. The story doesn't deny that the garden (the partnership society) was a better place to live. Indeed, the new god must officially banish the residents in order to get them to leave. The story gives a reason for the banishment -- disobedience and sinfulness -- and it prescribes a new mission for humanity -- to go forth and dominate the Earth and all its creatures. Let's consider this hybrid myth from perspective of the new peasant class. The myth tells them that they were banished from the garden due to their own innate failings, and they must be obedient to the new hierarchy. It tells them that humanity's mission is to conquer and dominate nature. The net effect of the mythology is to relegate the conquered to the role of cogs in a dominator machine, a machine controlled by its ruling hierarchy. For those at the bottom, it is a mythology of oppression and exploitation mixed with self-blame. Now let's consider the mythology from the perspective of the new rulers -- the warrior chief and his lieutenants. They weren't banished from a garden; rather they gained ownership of someone else's garden. They already had their own warrior culture, in which conquest and domination were extolled as virtues. There seems to be little reason for these people to take the new mythology seriously. It's function is to legitimize their authority, and for that only the underlings need to "believe." One might almost imagine -- based on the behavior of modern and historical elites -- that the top rulers of hierarchical civilizations have maintained their original culture through the ages -- as raw warriors and conquerors -- never really themselves becoming civilized. Whenever I read one of those conspiracy theories about "secret elite societies," I always wonder: "What big secret they could be hiding?" It seems to me there's really only one big secret that such people might like to share and celebrate on special occasions: "Never forget that we run things, and we do whatever we want. Everyone else is little people, and we're going to keep it that way!" In any case, these new hybrid hierarchical civilizations enabled the rulers to engage in warfare on an expanded scale. With the production afforded by slave-based agriculture, rulers could afford to pursue conquest and expansion. Excavations reveal that cities were repeatedly destroyed in warfare, and then rebuilt over the ruins by each wave of conquerors. Kingdoms became empires and the rest, as they say, is history. Relationships of ownership They whisper in the wings To those condemned to act accordingly And wait for succeeding kings And I try to harmonize with songs The lonesome sparrow sings There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden - Bob Dylan, The Gates of Eden In the beginning we all lived in egalitarian primordial societies. Some of us then took the path to civilization, continuing our egalitarian ways, developing our arts and crafts, and creating our own partnership Eden. Others of us took the path to barbarism and warfare. The barbarians then conquered Eden, hijacking the course of civilization, and forcing us all down the war-strewn dominator path that has brought us to our current global crisis. To this day we have an exploitive kind of civilization in the domestic microcosm, and outright barbarism in the geopolitical macrocosm. * The co-evolution of conditioning and hierarchy From the very beginning of hierarchical civilization, myths and conditioning have been used to subjugate. As civilization has evolved, the means of conditioning the masses have become gradually more sophisticated. Hammurabi was apparently the first Western ruler to reduce the cultural rules to an enumerated list, a list that was consciously designed by a known elite ruler. With Constantine we see an emperor facing a crisis of control; we see him select a religion to use as a conditioning tool; we see him modify the principles and censor the defining documents of that religion (Nicene Council, 325AD); we see him declare the newly re-designed religion to be the official mythology of the empire -- and then we see the new regime succeed in resolving Constantine's crisis of control.* In the Western world at least, Constantine's formula continued as a primary control strategy right up until the period of the Enlightenment, c. 1800. During the intervening millennia, a partnership between the sibling hierarchies of church and throne -- Constantine's formula -- remained the mainstay foundation of Western dominator forms. When changing economic conditions pushed monarchs toward stronger nationalism, protestant revolutions were encouraged, shifting the church part of the hierarchy closer to home -- reducing its relative power vis-a-vis the throne -- while not reducing its power to control the masses through conditioning. Indeed the pulpits now had the printing press; people could learn to read and could then condition themselves on their own time -- a very effective technological adaptation on the part of elites. For many years, printing presses were used exclusively for distributing biblical texts, as modified by Constantine and the early church hierarchy. When republics were established, a radically different mythological regime accompanied them, one consciously promulgated by emerging new elites. Whereas the previous regimes had aimed to condition populations to accept the reality of their oppression -- i.e., their station in life -- the new regime proclaimed the doctrine that people can escape altogether from arbitrary rule by elites -- a doctrine which may prove, someday, to be true. But along with this appealing doctrine came a whopper of a myth: the myth told people that they had already rid themselves of elite rule, that they themselves were now the sovereign rulers of society. The schools taught, and the people came to believe, that they lived already in democracies. I cannot help but recall a practice they have in a certain remote village. Once a year they take the town fool, put a crown on his head, and for a day they bow down to him as king. In his case, we can forgive him if he doesn't get the joke. In our case, we should know better. The strength of this particular myth can be measured by the number of readers who, at this early stage in our narrative, are asking themselves, "Hold on a minute, isn't it true that we do live in democracies?" I would not expect anyone to burst free of that deeply embedded and daily-reinforced myth on the basis of the general observations I have offered in this introductory chapter. In later chapters we will examine, as an archetypal case, America's Founding Fathers and the circumstances and intentions surrounding the drafting and adoption of the widely revered American Constitution. After that inspection, and the intervening material, you may find yourself more willing to entertain doubt regarding the "obvious truth" of democracy achieved. That turns out to be one of the most disempowering myths within all of Matrix reality. Having gained, I hope, a useful perspective on "how we got here," let us now turn our attention to the question: "What can we do about it? How can we respond to the crisis that faces us as a species and a civilization?" _____________________________________________ -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland "Escaping The Matrix - Global Transformation: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", somewhat current draft: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs. _____________________________ "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/ http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================