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by Penguin » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:21 pm
by smiths » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:28 pm
by vigilant » Sun Sep 21, 2008 7:58 pm
by vigilant » Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:09 pm
by Lord Balto » Mon Sep 22, 2008 12:59 pm
vanlose kid wrote:Penguin wrote:..."If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth programme, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs.
Communism or more accurately, socialism, is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite."..
"W.Cleon Skousen wrote in his book 'The Naked Capitalist'.
"Power from any source tends to create an appetite for additional power... It was almost inevitable that the super-rich would one day aspire to control not only their own wealth, but the wealth of the whole world.
To achieve this, they were perfectly willing to feed the ambitions of the power-hungry political conspirators who were committed to the overthrow of all existing governments and the establishments of a central world-wide dictatorship."...
reminds me of being completely freaked out in berkeley back in 1991 reading Valis. you guys in the know prolly remember that Dick's arch-nemesis Ferris F. Fremont (Nixon) was actually trying to bring on global communism. i find that an amazing insight really, looking back at what's been happening since reading that book. the fall of the berlin wall took on an entirely new meaning for me. and that was then.
****
mistaken me, it was Radio Free Albemuth: i went looking for Valis after reading that.
by Percival » Mon Sep 22, 2008 2:15 pm
by Penguin » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:52 pm
Lord Balto wrote:The bottom line is that the current financial crisis is the result of the victory of greed over common sense and not of some global conspiracy to establish socialism or communism as the world economic system. Someone once said, and I paraphrase, Never ascribe to conspiracy what can more easily be explained by stupidity.
Thats the "new" model for the West too.
by Penguin » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:55 pm
Lord Balto wrote:As for Jewish bankers, it is true that, proportionately, there are more Jewish bankers per capita than non-Jewish bankers. This has historical origins, the Jews having been blocked from other professions by legal restrictions and the Christians having been prevented from lending money by Church dictate. But remember that this is a per capita surplus. On the grand scale of things there are many many more non-Jewish bankers than Jewish bankers, so that the per capita excess is insignificant. The fact is that your fellow Christians have done this to you, not any of my relatives.
by marmot » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:15 pm
by Lord Balto » Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:35 pm
by Penguin » Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:41 pm
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by marmot » Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:40 am
Lord Balto wrote:As for where money came from (the original topic), I'd imagine it had something to do with the temples storing grain in the early river valley civilizations and handing out chits for the grain you had stored there.
Ah, right again: http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/ar ... #invention
Mark C. Taylor wrote:It has become a cliche to insist that in modern society money is God. There is, however, more truth in this observation than is usually recognized. Throughout history money and religion share a suprisingly close relationship. Considerable evidence suggest that the origin of money is associated with religious rituals. The word money derives from the epithet for Jupiter's sister and wife---Juno Moneta. As the warning goddess, Juno Moneta was best known for three "monitory tales: (1) she advised the Romans to sacrifice a pregnant sow to Cybele, to avert an earthquake; (2) she told them, when they feared for finances in the war against Pyrrhus, that money would never fail those whose cause was just; and (3) the geese that were crated for sacrifice in her temple at the city wall cackled and thus alerted the Romans to the intended surprise attack by the Gauls in 390 B.C.E. Roman coins were first minted in the Temple of Juno Moneta," thereby initiating the ancient practice of associating mints with temples. "The oldest altar to Juno Moneta was located on Mons Albanus, where a bull sacrifice, the central ritual of the Latin confederacy, was annually held."
Other etymological clues suggest a link between money and ritual sacrifice. The German world Geld (money), Horst Kurnitzky points out, "means more or less 'sacrifice' [Opfer]. Geld is Geld, weil es gilt [Money is money, because it is valid]. But in the eighth century, this verb gelten [to be valid] meant 'to sacrifice.'" The Greek word drachma, which is the name of a common coin, once was used to designate a handful of sacrificial meat (obios). In Latin pecunia, which is the root of the English pecuniary, derives from pecus (cattle). The association of money with sacrificial animals--especially cattle and bulls--is particularly suggestive. As is well known, the bull was commonly used in ancient ritual sacrifices. In Rome, the Mithraic cult, which was a serious threat to early Christianity, centered on the sacrifice of the bull, and in Greece, the god Dionysus was traditionally represented as a bull. In many of its forms, religion involves an economy of sacrifice in which the relationship between the believer and the god is established by the currency they share.
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