There are so many rabbit holes leading away from this one chapter. One example: Robespierre. I knew nothing about him except for his love of the guillotine.
I've got you beat: I knew nothing about him except for this one quote, and now I wonder if I had him all wrong. I once told Peter Breggin that he was like a Robespierre. He said that he hoped not. So the French Revolution, as something I knew mostly from Les Misérables, is something I need to rethink. But I don't know enough to make an intelligent statement on where I'm wrong, just enough to know I am.
Check out karif's reply below re: Kindle. Very timely, I'm glad I didn't have a chance to get back to you this morning. I would have said that was where I was going to put that version. Saved!
Amazon has always had the ability to remove books from your Kindle device. This is why I never let my Kindle connect to a network, but always downloaded the books, then transferred them to the device via a USB cable.
But just a week ago, I got an email from Amazon saying that they're eliminating the ability to do this USB transfer on books you buy from them. So yes, the answer is simply to offer the book on one's own web site and bypass Amazon entirely.
There are certainly ways in which things have stayed the same, but I think a fundamental shift has happened--with which I think you agree. In all of these examples, when ordinary people found out what was happening, they were horrified and willing to make personal sacrifices (like sugar) to change it. Your stack is aptly named as Evolution. I think we're at a leaping-off point for that transition. We're moving into recognizing our holi(whole)ness.
Thank you, great work! It is interesting that southern plantation self sufficiency was a threat while they were vulnerable debtors, an unsustainable system at the same time.
Yes, isn't that a double bind? I never thought I'd feel sympathy for slaveowners. Few in the South actually owned slaves, or more than one or two. So the utter destruction of 'Dixie' was similar to the annihilation of Germany, along with the imposed shame and self-flagellation. I'm not saying that slavery didn't happen or wasn't horrific, just that the benefits were reaped in boardrooms while the plantation owners were disposable.
I've only read the former so I couldn't say, karif. It's been interesting reading this aloud a decade after I wrote it. In some cases, I feel like I'm learning new things, as if I'm reading a different person, because of connections I've made since.
For instance, looking at both the French slave trade and the EIC as the introduction of 'shares' in a business. The business owner got his money up front and the stockholder had a gambling chip they had to bet on going up, in order to have value. So every 'investor' would protect a fundamentally unethical practice, or stand to lose. This is such a big part of how economics works ever since.
Other things I wondered if I'd still see them the same. Julius Skoolafish has a reference that calls King Leopold's Ghost 'atrocity porn' that maligned the king. I'm hoping he adds it here, because we've certainly seen that done with other events. But that said, I wouldn't assume it wasn't true either. More info needed!
exactly why i like to keep books to read at different times of my life to see what i have new context for.
i have enjoyed your sharing of parts of your book but admit it is speaking over my head at this point: and why i'm looking for a hard copy of your book (not usually in stock) so i can slowly consider the economic aspects (that i have to relearn with every new economic crises).
in recent years i've gotten impulsive by buying ebooks but i won't be doing that in the future as amazon is changing their kindle policy at the end of this month where you won't be able to "own" your purchase, they can edit or completely remove books from their offerings and your library. if you have any kindle books download them to your computer or say goodbye unless you read them in app or on their kindle products both of which seem riskier by the day to use.
reading King Leopold's Ghost was indeed traumatic knowing the practice of slavery under different guise continues in DRC today. i also realized after finishing the book about the slavery in place and "export" of ivory not once is an elephant mentioned adding to the horror. i in no way fault the excellent author for the erasure of animals considered dominion for the slaughter.
i recommend Lord Leverhulme's Ghosts by Jules Marchal with an jntroduction by Hochschild (i believe he titled his book in reference to Marchal's) about the theft of Congolese palm plantations by the same Lever company that owns most all soap related products on grocery shelves today that are another example of the industries that exploit to extinction.
Wise policy, karif. I was just looking through David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything and saw something on ancient Egypt that slipped by the first time.
That's very timely information on Amazon's kindle policy. Mark Alexander, on this thread, has been putting my book into e-reader form and is just about done. I had been thinking to put the Kindle version on Amazon. Since it's self-published, that's the only place that sells the hard copy. But I hadn't decided if I would sell it or give it away. However Amazon doesn't let you sell for less if they carry it. So that means it's still a question, although I need to set up one of my websites to make it available either way.
In an essay I wrote about the Ivory Coast, I said the same as you, that it was notable that only the commodity was mentioned in the name and the 'elephant was irrelephant."
I'm glad you're familiar with Hochschilds too. I'd love it if you responded to Julius and looked at the link. I will too but I'm always happy to have another person respond and give their impression. I'll elaborate more there.
As I wrote above, I've known for years about Amazon's ability to remove books from your device without your consent. Ironically, they did this a few years ago with copies of Orwell's 1984 that they deemed invalid/illegal/unauthorized/some damn thing. So I never let my Kindle connect to a network.
But now they're just about to disable the feature that lets you download the book from their site, then transfer it to the Kindle via USB.
So it's back to paper books, or free books from the Gutenberg project, or buying ebooks from other vendors.
I’ve lost the thread where we talked about this but I recall you saying something about feminism going the wrong way and women ending up serving corporations instead of men serving the family (correct me if that’s not quite the wording - can’t for the life of me locate previous comments easily ). This brings up images for me of men as nurturing, warm fuzzies, being relaxed and cared for, rest and having a load taken off the shoulders…
We hear a lot about family these days. The family unit is being disrupted! Those woke liberals are destroying nuclear families! Family values are being crushed by selfish women! The family is the unit of the nation! If you don’t have a family, you shouldn’t vote! Family seems all-important. Unquestionably important. Especially important to men who spend barely any time with their families, nor nurturing and caring for their children, nor caring for their homes and their partners…
I was reflecting on this recently as I often cackle to myself of how freeing it is to live alone and that getting married and having kids is basically my idea of “slavery and servitude” (I usually say this shrieking with laughter and my friends burst out laughing too). “Family” to me brings up a nightmare of perpetual exhaustion, doing far more emotional / intellectual / household labour, no time for rest, hobbies, passions, dreams, walking on eggshells around some inconsiderate energy-vampiric dude who expends minimal effort but feels entitled to on-demand coddling and you-know-what and not getting any of my needs met. I like to care for others - I like to be cared for too, which is rare in hetero-patriarchy as the definition of (traditional, Christian, conservative) masculinity is un-emotionality, non-caring, logic, rationality , intellect, (at best) and aggression/violence (at worst).
So…”family” in my mind is basically slavery under current conditions anyway. Unpopular opinion in freedom circles, I know!
I happened to read the below article today and it had the following definition of the word “family” which I had never seen before (another OH CRIKEY moment for me, but may be of no surprise to you with your love of etymology):
“Pater means owner, possessor, or master. The basic social unit of patriarchy is the family. The word “family” comes from the Oscan famel which means servant, slave, or possession. Pater familias means “owner of slaves.” Common fathers and ordinary priests derive their authority as paters.”
Famel means…slave? Servant??? Hang on a minute!! So my griping about family as slavery and servitude is…not just a metaphor?!?!
I looked this up online and indeed even the common etymology dictionaries say this about the etymology of the word “family”:
—-
“early 15c., "servants of a household," from Latin familia "family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household," thus also "members of a household, the estate, property; the household, including relatives and servants," abstract noun formed from famulus"servant, slave," which is of unknown origin.
The Latin word rarely appears in the sense "parents with their children," for which domus(see domestic (adj.)) was used. Derivatives of famulus include famula "serving woman, maid," famulanter "in the manner of a servant," famulitas "servitude," familiaris "of one's household, private," familiaricus "of household slaves," familiaritas "close friendship."
In English, sense of "collective body of persons who form one household under one head and one domestic government, including parents, children, and servants, and as sometimes used even lodgers or boarders" [Century Dictionary, 1889] is attested by 1540s. It is attested from 1660s as "parents with their children, whether they dwell together or not," also in a more general sense, "persons closely related by blood, including aunts, uncles, cousins;" earlier "those who descend from a common progenitor, a house, a lineage" (1580s).
Hence, "any group of things classed as kindred based on common distinguishing characteristics" (1620s); as a scientific classification, between genus and order, from 1753.”
—-
And you probably know in The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber talks about how family refers to “everyone under the domestic authority” and that the word “domestic” similarly has something to do with domination.
Just for fun I also checked Bouviers online law dictionary from 1800’s [emphasis mine]:
“FAMILY, domestic relations. In a limited sense it signifies the father, mother, and children. In a more extensive sense it comprehends all the individuals who live under the AUTHORITY OF ANOTHER and includes the servants of the family. It is also employed to signify all the relations who descend from a common ancestor, or who spring from a common root. Louis. Code, art. 3522, No. 16; 9 Ves. 323.
Doesn’t sound too bad, except the “authority of another” part. But I’ve learnt that these definitions appear as also more innocuous than they are. The first thing it states when defining “family” above is “domestic relations”. So I wondered…what does the law dictionary define “domestic” to mean?
“DOMESTICS. Those who reside in the same house with the master they serve the term does not extend to workmen or laborers employed out of doors. 5 Binn. R. 167; Merl. Rep. h. t. The Act of Congress of April 30, 1790, s. 25, uses the word domestic in this sense.
2. Formerly, this word was used to designate those who resided in the house of another, however exalted their station, and who performed services for him. Voltaire, in writing to the French queen, in 1748, says) " Deign to consider, madam, that I am one of the domestics of the king, and consequently yours, lily companions, the gentlemen of the king," &c.”
Domestics = serving a master.
So slavery begins at home. In the family. And this is all linked I imagine to your research on patriarchy, religion, war and empire - the personal is political. Yikes! Slavery in place indeed!
Maybe we need another word for family (make family great again) that doesn’t derive from slavery words ..??
I just posted your JUpiter etymology on Laurent Guyenot's thread with a note, since his post is only for paid subs--he and Vanessa Beeley are the only paid subs I do, and I'm not sure if he was worth it. Between you and Krivda, of which I'm on the last section, my etymology beast is eating its fill.
I had a moment when I wondered if you were an AI bot because you were just too good to be true--deep into feminist theology, economics, etymology, history, anthropology and even dance (which may have been the reference that made me wonder.) And then I decided that if Goddess saw fit to bless me with my own research djinni that even read my mind, I was good with that!
Awhile back, I had an avid reader called Nefahotep and I told him he was like the paterfamilias of my 'stack. He replied that he hadn't been familiar (a 'family' hex word, eh?) with that phrase and looked it up. He was a bit horrified, finding exactly what you did. I had thought of it as a friendly and watchful male figure. But it turns out that wasn't what I wanted on my stack either. [for reference: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/yahchopeeps and this is the comment thread: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/yahchopeeps/comment/59972991.]
As I've been outlining OMGdess, I've been thinking that 'father' is a man-made concept, not found in nature. The role of impregnator or sperm injector doesn't give rights of ownership of the child, or establish any relationship whatsoever. To be a 'daddy,' to use a child's word, is an earned title, not biological. And I admire dads all the more for it. I've known some very good ones, including the one I was married to. They have to work harder when kids are small, because babies just want their moms. As twisted up as things have gotten later, we were good co-parents.
When I look at my daughters' husband and boyfriends, they want to work hard and do something useful with their lives while raising a family. They have good hearts. But I've come out the other side to know the power imbalance, and how dependent a woman is on a man if she prioritizes her kids. And it's only gotten uglier in this generation. Every time I read The Women's Coalition, that I think you sent me to or your links, I have to take deep breaths because the family court is such a mother's worst nightmare.
Establishing an intergenerational mechanism by which mothers can securely raise their kids is the first priority of a Goddess culture. The involvement of men needs to be by mutual choice, not obligation or right. So I think you're on to something with the centrality of the 'nuclear' family as to how things got so messed up.
At the same time, if the purpose of a society is to make things better for the next generation, then parents and especially mothers are the ones concerned with that. Yes? They're the ones taking responsibility for others, whose needs they place above their own. I don't think someone is qualified to design an economic system for a community until they've proven it at the smallest unit of society by raising kids to be fair, competent and responsible, knowing how to care for a house, a garden, feed themselves, care for others.
And yes, we need a different word for family, for fathers, for those who take responsibility for kids without a biological imperative, whether male or female. When you wrote about paterfamilius, I thought "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church" and throw it at the women! It's Pater Dyeus the Sky Fukker showing up again!
To phrase your statement even more pointedly…”If you can’t clean a toilet, organise kids lunches for a week, keep pets and house plants alive, or find your own socks, what makes you think you can run the economy - or the world?” Needs to be on a t shirt and some billboards…😂
And some more random musings:
Djinni = genie in English.
Question: does genie have the same root as gene, genetic, generate, generation, genealogy, genesis (Genesis!!), congenial, all “life” related stuff, possibly also related to gentile, general, generic (all denote “of a similar kind”). PIE root is “to beget, to give birth.”
In Hindi the word for “to live” is jaan-na conjugated to jaan (life) which sounds a lot like gene (jene)…and jaan = to know as well as to live.
So back to “genie.” Comes from French génie which comes from Latin “genius” which interwebz say means “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;" also "prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens," originally "generative power" (or "inborn nature"), from PIE *gen(e)-yo-, from root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.” Probably not quite what djinni meant in Arabic but it sounds like the French did try to find a close-enough word (“génie”) that conveyed a similar sort of idea…?
I know before we discussed life/love/amor/morir so here’s another interesting set of “life”words: djinni/genie/genius/gene/generation/genesis. “Gens” in French means people, “gente” in Spanish means people, “gents” in English means…oh wait, only half the population. Which explains the stories in Genesis.
So everything we know about where life comes from (generates from) is inverted. Genesis says gents generate life (jaan) - male God/Creator, Adam’s rib. General opinion now says gents can generate life (jaan) because men can become women and women can become men so “people who give birth” must be referred to *generically* as “birthers” and “uterus-havers”. And Gentile people (gens/gente) who believe in Genesis actively oppose this. And generally people who believe in gender ideology also believe in genes and genetics and the genuine genius of genetic editing and gene therapy and gene sequencing and genetic medicine which is meant to be less generic, less homogeneous and more specific to the genes and genealogy of that individual and may lead to…eugenics, genocide and iatrogenocide…thanks to (military) Generals and the (UN) General Assembly.
So your passing comment about djinnis has led me on quite a bit of musing from genesis to
to genocide. And how all this is *gendered* Yikes!
And maybe I’m not a djinni but rather you and I are thinking similar thoughts because of morphic resonance / OneMind, so it’s all in the same (generic, general, gens (people’s)) pool of collective consciousness floating around. And I catch a bit of it floating past as I bob around and you dive into more of it as you’re actually studying it closely. Maybe..?
PS I can’t claim to have expertise in any of the areas except biology, economics and psychology which I have actually studied and read tens of thousands of pages on - everything else is dabbling /random musing! Glad some of it is relevant to your interests too; I usually assume you’ll already know the things I am only just discovering as you’ve covered so much ground already!
Really made me laugh, LoWa, and I'd love to see that on a tee! But I take it a step further: if you can't raise kids who know how to clean their own toilets, make their own lunches, keep pets and houseplants alive, and do their own laundry (including hanging it on a line), what makes you think you can design an economy?
There's a similarity to the problem in mothering and the problem in governance--the recipients want everything done for them. It's certainly easier to do everything yourself than to get a kid to do it and do it right. And you do need to let go of 'how'. My youngest stuffed clean clothes back in a drawer so they were indistinguishable from the clean ones. She's still waffling between rebellion and realizing there's no one but her to rebel against.
In a well-designed home economy, there's never a need for force or nagging. You don't need to persuade or manipulate. There are rules but no rulers, only leeway that can grant leniency or hold to the consequences but is never punitive.
To scale this up to the hamlet level, you're not providing for people (like socialism or communism) you're removing the barriers to people providing for themselves and especially for mothers taking care of their children.
So under my plan, every commoner has an equal share of the collective mortgages as subsidies. I'd put the mothers in charge of the children's. For property, I plan to put my home in a non-revocable trust sometime in the decade. This means, in essence, it will already belong to my daughters during my lifetime and no longer have a monetary value to me. For families who do this, I'd argue that the home should be exempt from property taxes or, at least, property tax increases because it's no longer a speculative investment--which is what drives housing prices up. But then again, not all kids are as trustworthy as my daughters so do I want to give an incentive for that? It would definitely help in a divorce, however, by making sure the kids keep the home along with the child-centric parent, aka mom.
WOW on the djinni musings! Love the idea of “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;" also "prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens" but why male? Which of course is what you're saying. It is ALL backwards. I will be musing on your generous gen references for days! I'm still thinking about family and all those slave connections. We do need a new word to describe a mother-child bond. My friend who's a delivery nurse now has to say 'chest-feeding'. What is this world coming to? An end I hope, of the krivda.
Woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn't get back to sleep, so decided to re-read this chapter. Some things in the part about French slavery puzzled me. I suppose I could read some history (like "The Black Jacobins"), but I'm lazy and figured you could answer my questions.
"The island of San Domingo, which later became Haiti[...]"
Haiti is the western 1/3 of the island. Why wasn't the eastern 2/3 (which later became the Dominican Republic) involved in the slave rebellion? Did slavery continue there, or did the slaves there achieve freedom too, but formed a separate country?
"The French currency itself was forbidden on the island, except in the smallest denominations[...]"
Was there another currency that the islanders could use amongst themselves? It doesn't sound like there was.
"In San Domingo the fearful white colonists began to terrorize the mulattoes. A leading abolitionist named Ogé came to the island to lead the insurrection[...]"
I feel there's a bunch of history compressed into these two sentences. Why were the white colonists fearful? Were the slaves being restive? If so, why were the mulattoes, who were also slave owners, the target of their terror? Were the mulattoes part of the unrest? I think this must the be case, since it sounds as if Ogé was leading an insurrection that was already in the making.
"When they finally won the only successful slave revolt in history, they were once again enslaved through debt[...]"
If it was the slave owners who were in debt to the French homeland, why was this debt transferred to the liberated slaves? What happened to the slave owners after the liberation?
Happy to provide you with such cheerful fodder for your middle-of-the-night musings, Mark. Like Julius with King Leopold and the Congo, you may have to dive down this rabbit hole to inform me. Reading it again from what I know now, I'm not sure that the Black Jacobins were the heroes I thought they were. I've heard some glimmers, that I haven't explored, that they were another psyops or color revolution.
But I can answer the question about Haiti vs the Dominican Republic. There are maps that show a stark contrast even in the land, barren on Haiti's side and lush in the DR. When Trump popularized 'they're eating the dogs,' thousands of Haitians a day were deported from the DR. Immigration from Haiti to the DR is as strictly controlled as from Palestine to Israel.
The slaves were not the benefactors or victors in the DR. It was kept as a luxury resort. The slaves were relegated to that third of the island as if it's a separate island.
The mulatto slaveowners were also fighting against the slave revolt. But before the revolt, white slaveowners were fighting against them. And yes, I too wonder about that line about Oge. I'm curious about him.
I don't think there was another currency for internal trade on the island. That would have allowed them a degree of sovereignty. From the book Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl, the slaves were given a plot of land and were responsible for feeding and sheltering themselves in their 'spare' time. I'm sure the slaveowners lived on imports. So there wouldn't be much need for an internal currency anyway, I'd think.
I'm still puzzled by that last bit, about the debt apparently being transferred from the slaveowners to the slaves themselves. It seems so monstrous, but we do have modern versions: bankers making out like bandits in the 2008 crash, while the peons lost their homes.
That phrase reminded me of Trump quoting the song, "You knew damn well I was a snake before you let me in." And here we are, tender woman, clutching another viper to our bosom.
I'm glad you appreciated my little joke! I still have our last conversation open to reply, but I will here instead.
First, you just had dinner with the world's wittiest geopolitical journalist?!! I love Pepe Escobar. Not only does he put the pieces together in the right order, but he makes you laugh when he clicks them into place. I don't know your other dinner guest, Mohammed Marandi, but I have a feeling I should and will look him up.
What a sad occasion, though, the collective funeral. Looking for the details, the internet would give me nothing. Finally, Reuters spit out one article saying it was for Nasrallah and others killed since in Lebanon. Is it really 2M, you think? A third of Lebanon's population?
Pepe is fun... our generation.... he was even more messed up then me by the Counterculture counter-revolution.... he eventually realized that it was a counter-revolution
Marandi can see him a lot on YouTube
Yes it was a very sad occasion.. but people there were a mixture of crying, defiance, solidarity and mostly paying our respects for a great man.
Yep it was around 2 million... forget the stadium and its surroundings.. our biker gang was over 3 km from the stadium and we were packed like sardines. Some 200,000 came to Lebanon for the occasion, mostly from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and then you had a few from all over including Ireland, Brazil, Africa, US, Europe....
My friends who made it to the stadium, left my place at 5:30 am... the stadium was already packed and closed by the time they arrived at 6:30.... then around 8... the crowd around was so big.... H allowed doors open so some can sit on the grounds... events were to start at 1 PM
procession stayed until 8 PM.... after prayers and speeches.... they walked back at snail's pace to the mausoleum which is near where we had made it. The 2 caskets were on a truck, as the truck moved those on the truck would throw flowers on the people. Some people would throw a cloth to have it rubbed against the caskets and thrown back. All who participated were please with the impact. It was a MAJOR message to the Israel, US and their puppet Lebanese politicians... H remains the main force in Lebanon.
I'm glad to have you as a window on this pivotal event. You're living in the heart of the whole world, I think. The Levant is where everything started and also where it will be resolved for the better, I'm certain. And you're keeping courageous company there. Honored to know you, Fadi.
Doc Malik recorded an interview with me this morning, not sure when it will air. I was surprised that he spent 90 min going into depth on the first section, and plans to record several more. So it's really more like a tutorial. It was lovely to get that kind of deep attention and reminded me of your perceptive comments.
Haha! I passed your comment on to him. I think that's his son reading Margaret Anna Alice's piece and then discussing it. His little boy seems super smart also.
This in no way detracts from your marvellous tome, but I will just add this podcast monologue by Matthew Raphael Johnson as a resource and lever for discussion. I haven’t found Dr Johnson to be a deliberately misleading propagandist, so I found this very informative. Otherwise, I have not really studied, let alone formed an opinion on the topic of Leopold and am still collating information.
• The Orthodox Nationalist: The Myth of King Leopold II of Belgium – TON 080421
But he does have some stern words to say about Adam Hochschild …
Notes:
“Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson uses the modern myth of the maligned King to show how atrocity porn functions and can be identified.
A popular myth, made famous especially last year, is that King Leopold II (1835-1909) of Belgium, between the years 1885 and 1908, murdered 10 million people in the Congo in an insatiable drive to profit from the rubber trade. This area was known as the “Congo Free State” (CFS).
While stories about these mass slaughters could be found over a century ago, there is no evidence for them happening. The myth is based on claims from a book by Communist activist Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Mariner, 1998). The author is one of the co-founders of Mother Jones and has no intention of making serious history.
Dr Johnson has coined the phrase “atrocity porn” to label a very common genre of “journalism” where targeted governments are described as psychopathic tyrants, slaughtering civilians for fun. This broadcast explains in great detail how this genre functions and how it can be identified."
Thanks, Julius. I asked karif to comment here too because he's read KLG too (along with my daughter Cassandra, who did a school paper on it). I've certainly been fooled by history before so I'm not reaching any conclusion here, just going off his statements before listening to the podcast:
"how atrocity porn functions and can be identified" So I'm looking at the photos in KLG. Sir Roger Casement, witness to Congo atrocities and Irish patriot. Hezekiah Shanu worked for the regime but sent evidence, was driven to suicide. Rev Sheppard documented the brutality, had lawsuit brought against him. Many photos of severed hands, including a five yr old. The chicotte (rhino whip) in use.
I met Hochschild in DC at a nonprofit I was active in against the Firestone Plantation in Liberia, which did use child labor and quotas. The statistics used by ED Morel seem compelling, not atrocities. There was just no trade going on.
I'm not sure what motivation there was to make it up. And 'atrocity porn' makes it seem like there weren't atrocities happening. But we know that's not true, right?
I read an interesting reply on a James Corbett thread that said, "people use highly ambiguous words whose sole purpose in the zeitgeist is to create confusion because their usage is solely connotative, abandoning their denotative purpose. These are words like communism, socialism, capitalism, feminism, and so on (just to name the most frequently occurring offenders)."
So Johnson's lack of defining his terms, like 'Communist activist' makes me suspicious. I don't find 'co-founder of Mother Jones' to be damning and 'no intention of making serious history' ... how does he know his intention? I've thought all three books of Hochschilds that I read were serious history. I'm sure I'd find holes in them now, but I'd need more to go on to dismiss these whole books.
Just my thoughts, pre-podcast. Always glad to have another view, Julius.
Highly recommended reading, and here is the response I posted there and in a Note:
Oh excellent, Julius! You're the second time today that I've been proven stupendously wrong, and I'm loving it! [up to three now that Mark graciously said 'I'm confused about how slavery going from 5000/ yr to 2M is a four-fold increase. Wouldn't it be 400X?' I'm on a roll!]
I haven't listened yet but your quotes explain the mystery of how evidence of the atrocities could coexist with them being propaganda--a different culprit and perpetrator.
And isn't it good news that 10M Congolese may not have been killed? I always wonder about those who are indignant that the ubiquitous 6M would be questioned. Why wouldn't we want to release the past of its burden of horror?
I'm still not sure it lets King Leopold off the hook, however. He appointed Tippu Tip governor and I think that someone can only lie to you with your permission. But I will listen and see if I'm wrong again!
You are never wrong when you are on this type of journey. You simply catapulted me into this rabbit hole and I brought back some more information. You have done all the heavy lifting and trail blazing.
Thanks, Tereza. I didn’t expect to be going down this rabbit hole, but thank you for sending me there.
There is a particular discussion between Matthew Raphael Johnson and Andrew Carrington Hitchcock that I have downloaded, and I can only make public by uploading a copy onto my own post, as the relevant links are now broken. Stay tuned. In particular, MRJ mentions Tippu Tip and I will provide a link to some research on him.
In the meantime, here is a short refutation of Hochschild’s claims that I will also include in my post.
• Leopold II's Congo Genocide Of 10 Million Africans, Except Not Really! - by The Alt Hype (Archive-org)
I did get a chance to listen, and I'll repost my comment from your post. I think there are some logical fallacies, that I'll outline below:
1. He says the motive for claiming King Leopold committed atrocities is anti-white hatred. Why would a king represent all whites rather than represent all royalty, if he represented anyone? Certainly other rulers of empires have more in common with him than your average white person.
2. He states that King Leopold 'owned' the Congo as his personal possession, so why would he commit genocide on his workforce? So MRJ sees it as perfectly okay that Leopold 'owns' the land of the Congo and all of its inhabitants. That itself isn't an atrocity, according to him. It's the form of subjugation and if it was too harsh that matters. I don't agree.
3. He sees Leopold as only interested in exploitation not genocide, since rubber saved the Belgian empire from bankruptcy. No slaveowner wants genocide--they want their slaves to be docile and obedient. Whips, severed hands and killing is only necessary when they rebel.
4. MRJ says Leopold was against slave trafficking. Well, duh. It's his slavery-in-place that they'd be poaching from. The resource and labor colony is much more efficient, as the East India Company showed.
5. He says that Leopold launched a commission to investigate the atrocities when brought to his attention a few months before his death. At that point, all of this was already coming out.
6. He claims Leopold didn't have the manpower with the Force Republic to commit these acts. In a hierarchy, you don't need to outnumber the colonized. You can control the few who control the many who control the rest.
7. MRJ doesn't differentiate 'atrocity porn' from evidence of atrocities. It seems dangerous to say that anyone who shows evidence of atrocities is therefore trying to manipulate public sentiment. It makes all journalists and whistleblowers suspect for their motives.
8. The hero of Adam Hochschild's book, ED Morel, didn't base his conclusions on atrocities. He started with simple statistics and observations of shipping bills. Those told the story that this wasn't trade but exploitation. The weapons going to the Congo were irrefutable, the lack of any payment, the ivory and rubber coming back. But MRJ's okay with all that, to him it's only when it goes too far that exploitation and colonization is bad. As he says "Leopold was looking to 'develop' the Congo". I wonder if MRJ would be okay with his family being 'developed' in that way.
9. I think it does Hitler a disservice to make the comparison that Leopold was the same because 'atrocity porn' was used against both. Hitler wasn't building an empire, he was reclaiming land taken after WWI. He was enabling Germans to provide for themselves economically, not exploit colonies. If Leopold had built an economic system so that Belgium would be self-reliant, I'd be defending him. But whether 10M were killed or simply and 'humanely' forced to spend their lives supplying rubber doesn't change the basic premise. Leopold 'owned' people, which makes him a slaveowner no matter what name he uses.
When I incidentally stumbled across the documentary “The 13 Sugar Colonies” I had no idea you had already covered this in such depth in your book. I just noticed that that documentary has since been removed from youtube [conveniently] on ‘copyright’ grounds so I am trying to re-upload a copy of the video here …
I had noticed it was removed when I went back to an old episode that embedded it. And yes the 'copyright' grounds seemed very fishy.
That documentary is definitely part of how I go back and read my own work differently now. At that time, I just had a vague sense of the 'financiers.' Now I see it as part of The Great Usurping by those who called themselves Jews, although I think that name was also usurped from the Judeans, with whom they have no genealogical or idealogical relationship.
There are so many rabbit holes leading away from this one chapter. One example: Robespierre. I knew nothing about him except for his love of the guillotine.
I've got you beat: I knew nothing about him except for this one quote, and now I wonder if I had him all wrong. I once told Peter Breggin that he was like a Robespierre. He said that he hoped not. So the French Revolution, as something I knew mostly from Les Misérables, is something I need to rethink. But I don't know enough to make an intelligent statement on where I'm wrong, just enough to know I am.
Check out karif's reply below re: Kindle. Very timely, I'm glad I didn't have a chance to get back to you this morning. I would have said that was where I was going to put that version. Saved!
Amazon has always had the ability to remove books from your Kindle device. This is why I never let my Kindle connect to a network, but always downloaded the books, then transferred them to the device via a USB cable.
But just a week ago, I got an email from Amazon saying that they're eliminating the ability to do this USB transfer on books you buy from them. So yes, the answer is simply to offer the book on one's own web site and bypass Amazon entirely.
Well done.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I'm glad there are people like you who can put it all together.
It makes my brain hurt.
Thank you, Philip!
There are certainly ways in which things have stayed the same, but I think a fundamental shift has happened--with which I think you agree. In all of these examples, when ordinary people found out what was happening, they were horrified and willing to make personal sacrifices (like sugar) to change it. Your stack is aptly named as Evolution. I think we're at a leaping-off point for that transition. We're moving into recognizing our holi(whole)ness.
Thank you, great work! It is interesting that southern plantation self sufficiency was a threat while they were vulnerable debtors, an unsustainable system at the same time.
Yes, isn't that a double bind? I never thought I'd feel sympathy for slaveowners. Few in the South actually owned slaves, or more than one or two. So the utter destruction of 'Dixie' was similar to the annihilation of Germany, along with the imposed shame and self-flagellation. I'm not saying that slavery didn't happen or wasn't horrific, just that the benefits were reaped in boardrooms while the plantation owners were disposable.
it's been several years since i read King Leopold's Ghost and then Lord Leverhuelme's Ghost. am i misremembering/conflating the two?🤔
I've only read the former so I couldn't say, karif. It's been interesting reading this aloud a decade after I wrote it. In some cases, I feel like I'm learning new things, as if I'm reading a different person, because of connections I've made since.
For instance, looking at both the French slave trade and the EIC as the introduction of 'shares' in a business. The business owner got his money up front and the stockholder had a gambling chip they had to bet on going up, in order to have value. So every 'investor' would protect a fundamentally unethical practice, or stand to lose. This is such a big part of how economics works ever since.
Other things I wondered if I'd still see them the same. Julius Skoolafish has a reference that calls King Leopold's Ghost 'atrocity porn' that maligned the king. I'm hoping he adds it here, because we've certainly seen that done with other events. But that said, I wouldn't assume it wasn't true either. More info needed!
exactly why i like to keep books to read at different times of my life to see what i have new context for.
i have enjoyed your sharing of parts of your book but admit it is speaking over my head at this point: and why i'm looking for a hard copy of your book (not usually in stock) so i can slowly consider the economic aspects (that i have to relearn with every new economic crises).
in recent years i've gotten impulsive by buying ebooks but i won't be doing that in the future as amazon is changing their kindle policy at the end of this month where you won't be able to "own" your purchase, they can edit or completely remove books from their offerings and your library. if you have any kindle books download them to your computer or say goodbye unless you read them in app or on their kindle products both of which seem riskier by the day to use.
reading King Leopold's Ghost was indeed traumatic knowing the practice of slavery under different guise continues in DRC today. i also realized after finishing the book about the slavery in place and "export" of ivory not once is an elephant mentioned adding to the horror. i in no way fault the excellent author for the erasure of animals considered dominion for the slaughter.
i recommend Lord Leverhulme's Ghosts by Jules Marchal with an jntroduction by Hochschild (i believe he titled his book in reference to Marchal's) about the theft of Congolese palm plantations by the same Lever company that owns most all soap related products on grocery shelves today that are another example of the industries that exploit to extinction.
thanks again for sharing your work!
Wise policy, karif. I was just looking through David Graeber's The Dawn of Everything and saw something on ancient Egypt that slipped by the first time.
That's very timely information on Amazon's kindle policy. Mark Alexander, on this thread, has been putting my book into e-reader form and is just about done. I had been thinking to put the Kindle version on Amazon. Since it's self-published, that's the only place that sells the hard copy. But I hadn't decided if I would sell it or give it away. However Amazon doesn't let you sell for less if they carry it. So that means it's still a question, although I need to set up one of my websites to make it available either way.
In an essay I wrote about the Ivory Coast, I said the same as you, that it was notable that only the commodity was mentioned in the name and the 'elephant was irrelephant."
I'm glad you're familiar with Hochschilds too. I'd love it if you responded to Julius and looked at the link. I will too but I'm always happy to have another person respond and give their impression. I'll elaborate more there.
As I wrote above, I've known for years about Amazon's ability to remove books from your device without your consent. Ironically, they did this a few years ago with copies of Orwell's 1984 that they deemed invalid/illegal/unauthorized/some damn thing. So I never let my Kindle connect to a network.
But now they're just about to disable the feature that lets you download the book from their site, then transfer it to the Kindle via USB.
So it's back to paper books, or free books from the Gutenberg project, or buying ebooks from other vendors.
indeed: my copies of both 1984 and Animal Farm are deleted from my library. and i have had no success in downloading my library onto a mac
live learn and read hard copies of books!
I’ve lost the thread where we talked about this but I recall you saying something about feminism going the wrong way and women ending up serving corporations instead of men serving the family (correct me if that’s not quite the wording - can’t for the life of me locate previous comments easily ). This brings up images for me of men as nurturing, warm fuzzies, being relaxed and cared for, rest and having a load taken off the shoulders…
We hear a lot about family these days. The family unit is being disrupted! Those woke liberals are destroying nuclear families! Family values are being crushed by selfish women! The family is the unit of the nation! If you don’t have a family, you shouldn’t vote! Family seems all-important. Unquestionably important. Especially important to men who spend barely any time with their families, nor nurturing and caring for their children, nor caring for their homes and their partners…
I was reflecting on this recently as I often cackle to myself of how freeing it is to live alone and that getting married and having kids is basically my idea of “slavery and servitude” (I usually say this shrieking with laughter and my friends burst out laughing too). “Family” to me brings up a nightmare of perpetual exhaustion, doing far more emotional / intellectual / household labour, no time for rest, hobbies, passions, dreams, walking on eggshells around some inconsiderate energy-vampiric dude who expends minimal effort but feels entitled to on-demand coddling and you-know-what and not getting any of my needs met. I like to care for others - I like to be cared for too, which is rare in hetero-patriarchy as the definition of (traditional, Christian, conservative) masculinity is un-emotionality, non-caring, logic, rationality , intellect, (at best) and aggression/violence (at worst).
So…”family” in my mind is basically slavery under current conditions anyway. Unpopular opinion in freedom circles, I know!
I happened to read the below article today and it had the following definition of the word “family” which I had never seen before (another OH CRIKEY moment for me, but may be of no surprise to you with your love of etymology):
“Pater means owner, possessor, or master. The basic social unit of patriarchy is the family. The word “family” comes from the Oscan famel which means servant, slave, or possession. Pater familias means “owner of slaves.” Common fathers and ordinary priests derive their authority as paters.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/donovancleckley/p/andrea-dworkin-marx-and-gandhi-were-liberals?r=qdiky&utm_medium=ios
Famel means…slave? Servant??? Hang on a minute!! So my griping about family as slavery and servitude is…not just a metaphor?!?!
I looked this up online and indeed even the common etymology dictionaries say this about the etymology of the word “family”:
—-
“early 15c., "servants of a household," from Latin familia "family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household," thus also "members of a household, the estate, property; the household, including relatives and servants," abstract noun formed from famulus"servant, slave," which is of unknown origin.
The Latin word rarely appears in the sense "parents with their children," for which domus(see domestic (adj.)) was used. Derivatives of famulus include famula "serving woman, maid," famulanter "in the manner of a servant," famulitas "servitude," familiaris "of one's household, private," familiaricus "of household slaves," familiaritas "close friendship."
In English, sense of "collective body of persons who form one household under one head and one domestic government, including parents, children, and servants, and as sometimes used even lodgers or boarders" [Century Dictionary, 1889] is attested by 1540s. It is attested from 1660s as "parents with their children, whether they dwell together or not," also in a more general sense, "persons closely related by blood, including aunts, uncles, cousins;" earlier "those who descend from a common progenitor, a house, a lineage" (1580s).
Hence, "any group of things classed as kindred based on common distinguishing characteristics" (1620s); as a scientific classification, between genus and order, from 1753.”
—-
And you probably know in The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber talks about how family refers to “everyone under the domestic authority” and that the word “domestic” similarly has something to do with domination.
Just for fun I also checked Bouviers online law dictionary from 1800’s [emphasis mine]:
“FAMILY, domestic relations. In a limited sense it signifies the father, mother, and children. In a more extensive sense it comprehends all the individuals who live under the AUTHORITY OF ANOTHER and includes the servants of the family. It is also employed to signify all the relations who descend from a common ancestor, or who spring from a common root. Louis. Code, art. 3522, No. 16; 9 Ves. 323.
Doesn’t sound too bad, except the “authority of another” part. But I’ve learnt that these definitions appear as also more innocuous than they are. The first thing it states when defining “family” above is “domestic relations”. So I wondered…what does the law dictionary define “domestic” to mean?
“DOMESTICS. Those who reside in the same house with the master they serve the term does not extend to workmen or laborers employed out of doors. 5 Binn. R. 167; Merl. Rep. h. t. The Act of Congress of April 30, 1790, s. 25, uses the word domestic in this sense.
2. Formerly, this word was used to designate those who resided in the house of another, however exalted their station, and who performed services for him. Voltaire, in writing to the French queen, in 1748, says) " Deign to consider, madam, that I am one of the domestics of the king, and consequently yours, lily companions, the gentlemen of the king," &c.”
Domestics = serving a master.
So slavery begins at home. In the family. And this is all linked I imagine to your research on patriarchy, religion, war and empire - the personal is political. Yikes! Slavery in place indeed!
Maybe we need another word for family (make family great again) that doesn’t derive from slavery words ..??
I just posted your JUpiter etymology on Laurent Guyenot's thread with a note, since his post is only for paid subs--he and Vanessa Beeley are the only paid subs I do, and I'm not sure if he was worth it. Between you and Krivda, of which I'm on the last section, my etymology beast is eating its fill.
I had a moment when I wondered if you were an AI bot because you were just too good to be true--deep into feminist theology, economics, etymology, history, anthropology and even dance (which may have been the reference that made me wonder.) And then I decided that if Goddess saw fit to bless me with my own research djinni that even read my mind, I was good with that!
Awhile back, I had an avid reader called Nefahotep and I told him he was like the paterfamilias of my 'stack. He replied that he hadn't been familiar (a 'family' hex word, eh?) with that phrase and looked it up. He was a bit horrified, finding exactly what you did. I had thought of it as a friendly and watchful male figure. But it turns out that wasn't what I wanted on my stack either. [for reference: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/yahchopeeps and this is the comment thread: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/yahchopeeps/comment/59972991.]
As I've been outlining OMGdess, I've been thinking that 'father' is a man-made concept, not found in nature. The role of impregnator or sperm injector doesn't give rights of ownership of the child, or establish any relationship whatsoever. To be a 'daddy,' to use a child's word, is an earned title, not biological. And I admire dads all the more for it. I've known some very good ones, including the one I was married to. They have to work harder when kids are small, because babies just want their moms. As twisted up as things have gotten later, we were good co-parents.
When I look at my daughters' husband and boyfriends, they want to work hard and do something useful with their lives while raising a family. They have good hearts. But I've come out the other side to know the power imbalance, and how dependent a woman is on a man if she prioritizes her kids. And it's only gotten uglier in this generation. Every time I read The Women's Coalition, that I think you sent me to or your links, I have to take deep breaths because the family court is such a mother's worst nightmare.
Establishing an intergenerational mechanism by which mothers can securely raise their kids is the first priority of a Goddess culture. The involvement of men needs to be by mutual choice, not obligation or right. So I think you're on to something with the centrality of the 'nuclear' family as to how things got so messed up.
At the same time, if the purpose of a society is to make things better for the next generation, then parents and especially mothers are the ones concerned with that. Yes? They're the ones taking responsibility for others, whose needs they place above their own. I don't think someone is qualified to design an economic system for a community until they've proven it at the smallest unit of society by raising kids to be fair, competent and responsible, knowing how to care for a house, a garden, feed themselves, care for others.
And yes, we need a different word for family, for fathers, for those who take responsibility for kids without a biological imperative, whether male or female. When you wrote about paterfamilius, I thought "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church" and throw it at the women! It's Pater Dyeus the Sky Fukker showing up again!
To phrase your statement even more pointedly…”If you can’t clean a toilet, organise kids lunches for a week, keep pets and house plants alive, or find your own socks, what makes you think you can run the economy - or the world?” Needs to be on a t shirt and some billboards…😂
And some more random musings:
Djinni = genie in English.
Question: does genie have the same root as gene, genetic, generate, generation, genealogy, genesis (Genesis!!), congenial, all “life” related stuff, possibly also related to gentile, general, generic (all denote “of a similar kind”). PIE root is “to beget, to give birth.”
In Hindi the word for “to live” is jaan-na conjugated to jaan (life) which sounds a lot like gene (jene)…and jaan = to know as well as to live.
So back to “genie.” Comes from French génie which comes from Latin “genius” which interwebz say means “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;" also "prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens," originally "generative power" (or "inborn nature"), from PIE *gen(e)-yo-, from root *gene- "give birth, beget," with derivatives referring to procreation and familial and tribal groups.” Probably not quite what djinni meant in Arabic but it sounds like the French did try to find a close-enough word (“génie”) that conveyed a similar sort of idea…?
I know before we discussed life/love/amor/morir so here’s another interesting set of “life”words: djinni/genie/genius/gene/generation/genesis. “Gens” in French means people, “gente” in Spanish means people, “gents” in English means…oh wait, only half the population. Which explains the stories in Genesis.
So everything we know about where life comes from (generates from) is inverted. Genesis says gents generate life (jaan) - male God/Creator, Adam’s rib. General opinion now says gents can generate life (jaan) because men can become women and women can become men so “people who give birth” must be referred to *generically* as “birthers” and “uterus-havers”. And Gentile people (gens/gente) who believe in Genesis actively oppose this. And generally people who believe in gender ideology also believe in genes and genetics and the genuine genius of genetic editing and gene therapy and gene sequencing and genetic medicine which is meant to be less generic, less homogeneous and more specific to the genes and genealogy of that individual and may lead to…eugenics, genocide and iatrogenocide…thanks to (military) Generals and the (UN) General Assembly.
So your passing comment about djinnis has led me on quite a bit of musing from genesis to
to genocide. And how all this is *gendered* Yikes!
And maybe I’m not a djinni but rather you and I are thinking similar thoughts because of morphic resonance / OneMind, so it’s all in the same (generic, general, gens (people’s)) pool of collective consciousness floating around. And I catch a bit of it floating past as I bob around and you dive into more of it as you’re actually studying it closely. Maybe..?
PS I can’t claim to have expertise in any of the areas except biology, economics and psychology which I have actually studied and read tens of thousands of pages on - everything else is dabbling /random musing! Glad some of it is relevant to your interests too; I usually assume you’ll already know the things I am only just discovering as you’ve covered so much ground already!
Really made me laugh, LoWa, and I'd love to see that on a tee! But I take it a step further: if you can't raise kids who know how to clean their own toilets, make their own lunches, keep pets and houseplants alive, and do their own laundry (including hanging it on a line), what makes you think you can design an economy?
There's a similarity to the problem in mothering and the problem in governance--the recipients want everything done for them. It's certainly easier to do everything yourself than to get a kid to do it and do it right. And you do need to let go of 'how'. My youngest stuffed clean clothes back in a drawer so they were indistinguishable from the clean ones. She's still waffling between rebellion and realizing there's no one but her to rebel against.
In a well-designed home economy, there's never a need for force or nagging. You don't need to persuade or manipulate. There are rules but no rulers, only leeway that can grant leniency or hold to the consequences but is never punitive.
To scale this up to the hamlet level, you're not providing for people (like socialism or communism) you're removing the barriers to people providing for themselves and especially for mothers taking care of their children.
So under my plan, every commoner has an equal share of the collective mortgages as subsidies. I'd put the mothers in charge of the children's. For property, I plan to put my home in a non-revocable trust sometime in the decade. This means, in essence, it will already belong to my daughters during my lifetime and no longer have a monetary value to me. For families who do this, I'd argue that the home should be exempt from property taxes or, at least, property tax increases because it's no longer a speculative investment--which is what drives housing prices up. But then again, not all kids are as trustworthy as my daughters so do I want to give an incentive for that? It would definitely help in a divorce, however, by making sure the kids keep the home along with the child-centric parent, aka mom.
WOW on the djinni musings! Love the idea of “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;" also "prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens" but why male? Which of course is what you're saying. It is ALL backwards. I will be musing on your generous gen references for days! I'm still thinking about family and all those slave connections. We do need a new word to describe a mother-child bond. My friend who's a delivery nurse now has to say 'chest-feeding'. What is this world coming to? An end I hope, of the krivda.
Woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn't get back to sleep, so decided to re-read this chapter. Some things in the part about French slavery puzzled me. I suppose I could read some history (like "The Black Jacobins"), but I'm lazy and figured you could answer my questions.
"The island of San Domingo, which later became Haiti[...]"
Haiti is the western 1/3 of the island. Why wasn't the eastern 2/3 (which later became the Dominican Republic) involved in the slave rebellion? Did slavery continue there, or did the slaves there achieve freedom too, but formed a separate country?
"The French currency itself was forbidden on the island, except in the smallest denominations[...]"
Was there another currency that the islanders could use amongst themselves? It doesn't sound like there was.
"In San Domingo the fearful white colonists began to terrorize the mulattoes. A leading abolitionist named Ogé came to the island to lead the insurrection[...]"
I feel there's a bunch of history compressed into these two sentences. Why were the white colonists fearful? Were the slaves being restive? If so, why were the mulattoes, who were also slave owners, the target of their terror? Were the mulattoes part of the unrest? I think this must the be case, since it sounds as if Ogé was leading an insurrection that was already in the making.
"When they finally won the only successful slave revolt in history, they were once again enslaved through debt[...]"
If it was the slave owners who were in debt to the French homeland, why was this debt transferred to the liberated slaves? What happened to the slave owners after the liberation?
Happy to provide you with such cheerful fodder for your middle-of-the-night musings, Mark. Like Julius with King Leopold and the Congo, you may have to dive down this rabbit hole to inform me. Reading it again from what I know now, I'm not sure that the Black Jacobins were the heroes I thought they were. I've heard some glimmers, that I haven't explored, that they were another psyops or color revolution.
But I can answer the question about Haiti vs the Dominican Republic. There are maps that show a stark contrast even in the land, barren on Haiti's side and lush in the DR. When Trump popularized 'they're eating the dogs,' thousands of Haitians a day were deported from the DR. Immigration from Haiti to the DR is as strictly controlled as from Palestine to Israel.
The slaves were not the benefactors or victors in the DR. It was kept as a luxury resort. The slaves were relegated to that third of the island as if it's a separate island.
The mulatto slaveowners were also fighting against the slave revolt. But before the revolt, white slaveowners were fighting against them. And yes, I too wonder about that line about Oge. I'm curious about him.
I don't think there was another currency for internal trade on the island. That would have allowed them a degree of sovereignty. From the book Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl, the slaves were given a plot of land and were responsible for feeding and sheltering themselves in their 'spare' time. I'm sure the slaveowners lived on imports. So there wouldn't be much need for an internal currency anyway, I'd think.
Thanks for your provocative mind-somnambulations.
Thanks for the reply. More rabbit holes, yay!
I'm still puzzled by that last bit, about the debt apparently being transferred from the slaveowners to the slaves themselves. It seems so monstrous, but we do have modern versions: bankers making out like bandits in the 2008 crash, while the peons lost their homes.
Fantastic!
"This cursed Company would, at last, like a viper, be the destruction of the country which fostered it at its bosom"
And it did! It was downhill since for that country
"liberté, fraternité, slaveré"
:-) lovely!
That phrase reminded me of Trump quoting the song, "You knew damn well I was a snake before you let me in." And here we are, tender woman, clutching another viper to our bosom.
I'm glad you appreciated my little joke! I still have our last conversation open to reply, but I will here instead.
First, you just had dinner with the world's wittiest geopolitical journalist?!! I love Pepe Escobar. Not only does he put the pieces together in the right order, but he makes you laugh when he clicks them into place. I don't know your other dinner guest, Mohammed Marandi, but I have a feeling I should and will look him up.
What a sad occasion, though, the collective funeral. Looking for the details, the internet would give me nothing. Finally, Reuters spit out one article saying it was for Nasrallah and others killed since in Lebanon. Is it really 2M, you think? A third of Lebanon's population?
I'm heartsick for Lebanon, Palestine, Syria.
Pepe is fun... our generation.... he was even more messed up then me by the Counterculture counter-revolution.... he eventually realized that it was a counter-revolution
Marandi can see him a lot on YouTube
Yes it was a very sad occasion.. but people there were a mixture of crying, defiance, solidarity and mostly paying our respects for a great man.
Yep it was around 2 million... forget the stadium and its surroundings.. our biker gang was over 3 km from the stadium and we were packed like sardines. Some 200,000 came to Lebanon for the occasion, mostly from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and then you had a few from all over including Ireland, Brazil, Africa, US, Europe....
My friends who made it to the stadium, left my place at 5:30 am... the stadium was already packed and closed by the time they arrived at 6:30.... then around 8... the crowd around was so big.... H allowed doors open so some can sit on the grounds... events were to start at 1 PM
procession stayed until 8 PM.... after prayers and speeches.... they walked back at snail's pace to the mausoleum which is near where we had made it. The 2 caskets were on a truck, as the truck moved those on the truck would throw flowers on the people. Some people would throw a cloth to have it rubbed against the caskets and thrown back. All who participated were please with the impact. It was a MAJOR message to the Israel, US and their puppet Lebanese politicians... H remains the main force in Lebanon.
I'm glad to have you as a window on this pivotal event. You're living in the heart of the whole world, I think. The Levant is where everything started and also where it will be resolved for the better, I'm certain. And you're keeping courageous company there. Honored to know you, Fadi.
Doc Malik recorded an interview with me this morning, not sure when it will air. I was surprised that he spent 90 min going into depth on the first section, and plans to record several more. So it's really more like a tutorial. It was lovely to get that kind of deep attention and reminded me of your perceptive comments.
I look forward to the interview...
I checked Doc Malik and YouTube, and saw a video that intrigued me, wondering, surely Tereza doesn't buy this:
"Bonus Episode - 50 Reasons to Give Your Child the COVID Shot"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4n24g39KUE
I watched a bit.. hilarious :-) worth watching if you haven't :-)
My impression is that Doc is super smart :-)
Haha! I passed your comment on to him. I think that's his son reading Margaret Anna Alice's piece and then discussing it. His little boy seems super smart also.
This in no way detracts from your marvellous tome, but I will just add this podcast monologue by Matthew Raphael Johnson as a resource and lever for discussion. I haven’t found Dr Johnson to be a deliberately misleading propagandist, so I found this very informative. Otherwise, I have not really studied, let alone formed an opinion on the topic of Leopold and am still collating information.
• The Orthodox Nationalist: The Myth of King Leopold II of Belgium – TON 080421
https://www.radioalbion.com/2021/08/the-orthodox-nationalist-myth-of-king.html
But he does have some stern words to say about Adam Hochschild …
Notes:
“Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson uses the modern myth of the maligned King to show how atrocity porn functions and can be identified.
A popular myth, made famous especially last year, is that King Leopold II (1835-1909) of Belgium, between the years 1885 and 1908, murdered 10 million people in the Congo in an insatiable drive to profit from the rubber trade. This area was known as the “Congo Free State” (CFS).
While stories about these mass slaughters could be found over a century ago, there is no evidence for them happening. The myth is based on claims from a book by Communist activist Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Mariner, 1998). The author is one of the co-founders of Mother Jones and has no intention of making serious history.
Dr Johnson has coined the phrase “atrocity porn” to label a very common genre of “journalism” where targeted governments are described as psychopathic tyrants, slaughtering civilians for fun. This broadcast explains in great detail how this genre functions and how it can be identified."
Thanks, Julius. I asked karif to comment here too because he's read KLG too (along with my daughter Cassandra, who did a school paper on it). I've certainly been fooled by history before so I'm not reaching any conclusion here, just going off his statements before listening to the podcast:
"how atrocity porn functions and can be identified" So I'm looking at the photos in KLG. Sir Roger Casement, witness to Congo atrocities and Irish patriot. Hezekiah Shanu worked for the regime but sent evidence, was driven to suicide. Rev Sheppard documented the brutality, had lawsuit brought against him. Many photos of severed hands, including a five yr old. The chicotte (rhino whip) in use.
I met Hochschild in DC at a nonprofit I was active in against the Firestone Plantation in Liberia, which did use child labor and quotas. The statistics used by ED Morel seem compelling, not atrocities. There was just no trade going on.
I'm not sure what motivation there was to make it up. And 'atrocity porn' makes it seem like there weren't atrocities happening. But we know that's not true, right?
I read an interesting reply on a James Corbett thread that said, "people use highly ambiguous words whose sole purpose in the zeitgeist is to create confusion because their usage is solely connotative, abandoning their denotative purpose. These are words like communism, socialism, capitalism, feminism, and so on (just to name the most frequently occurring offenders)."
So Johnson's lack of defining his terms, like 'Communist activist' makes me suspicious. I don't find 'co-founder of Mother Jones' to be damning and 'no intention of making serious history' ... how does he know his intention? I've thought all three books of Hochschilds that I read were serious history. I'm sure I'd find holes in them now, but I'd need more to go on to dismiss these whole books.
Just my thoughts, pre-podcast. Always glad to have another view, Julius.
My continuation of this discussion as promised here ...
https://juliusskoolafish.substack.com/p/king-leopold-ii-compilation
Highly recommended reading, and here is the response I posted there and in a Note:
Oh excellent, Julius! You're the second time today that I've been proven stupendously wrong, and I'm loving it! [up to three now that Mark graciously said 'I'm confused about how slavery going from 5000/ yr to 2M is a four-fold increase. Wouldn't it be 400X?' I'm on a roll!]
I haven't listened yet but your quotes explain the mystery of how evidence of the atrocities could coexist with them being propaganda--a different culprit and perpetrator.
And isn't it good news that 10M Congolese may not have been killed? I always wonder about those who are indignant that the ubiquitous 6M would be questioned. Why wouldn't we want to release the past of its burden of horror?
I'm still not sure it lets King Leopold off the hook, however. He appointed Tippu Tip governor and I think that someone can only lie to you with your permission. But I will listen and see if I'm wrong again!
You are never wrong when you are on this type of journey. You simply catapulted me into this rabbit hole and I brought back some more information. You have done all the heavy lifting and trail blazing.
Fonzie scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkqgDoo_eZE
Hahaha!! Thanks for the deep dive, Bugs!
Thanks, Tereza. I didn’t expect to be going down this rabbit hole, but thank you for sending me there.
There is a particular discussion between Matthew Raphael Johnson and Andrew Carrington Hitchcock that I have downloaded, and I can only make public by uploading a copy onto my own post, as the relevant links are now broken. Stay tuned. In particular, MRJ mentions Tippu Tip and I will provide a link to some research on him.
In the meantime, here is a short refutation of Hochschild’s claims that I will also include in my post.
• Leopold II's Congo Genocide Of 10 Million Africans, Except Not Really! - by The Alt Hype (Archive-org)
https://archive.org/details/leopold-iis-congo-genocide-of-10-million-africans-except-not-really
Of course, we are talking here about historical claims and rebuttals, so treat this as evidence gathering for our front-loading dryer collaboration. 😊
I did get a chance to listen, and I'll repost my comment from your post. I think there are some logical fallacies, that I'll outline below:
1. He says the motive for claiming King Leopold committed atrocities is anti-white hatred. Why would a king represent all whites rather than represent all royalty, if he represented anyone? Certainly other rulers of empires have more in common with him than your average white person.
2. He states that King Leopold 'owned' the Congo as his personal possession, so why would he commit genocide on his workforce? So MRJ sees it as perfectly okay that Leopold 'owns' the land of the Congo and all of its inhabitants. That itself isn't an atrocity, according to him. It's the form of subjugation and if it was too harsh that matters. I don't agree.
3. He sees Leopold as only interested in exploitation not genocide, since rubber saved the Belgian empire from bankruptcy. No slaveowner wants genocide--they want their slaves to be docile and obedient. Whips, severed hands and killing is only necessary when they rebel.
4. MRJ says Leopold was against slave trafficking. Well, duh. It's his slavery-in-place that they'd be poaching from. The resource and labor colony is much more efficient, as the East India Company showed.
5. He says that Leopold launched a commission to investigate the atrocities when brought to his attention a few months before his death. At that point, all of this was already coming out.
6. He claims Leopold didn't have the manpower with the Force Republic to commit these acts. In a hierarchy, you don't need to outnumber the colonized. You can control the few who control the many who control the rest.
7. MRJ doesn't differentiate 'atrocity porn' from evidence of atrocities. It seems dangerous to say that anyone who shows evidence of atrocities is therefore trying to manipulate public sentiment. It makes all journalists and whistleblowers suspect for their motives.
8. The hero of Adam Hochschild's book, ED Morel, didn't base his conclusions on atrocities. He started with simple statistics and observations of shipping bills. Those told the story that this wasn't trade but exploitation. The weapons going to the Congo were irrefutable, the lack of any payment, the ivory and rubber coming back. But MRJ's okay with all that, to him it's only when it goes too far that exploitation and colonization is bad. As he says "Leopold was looking to 'develop' the Congo". I wonder if MRJ would be okay with his family being 'developed' in that way.
9. I think it does Hitler a disservice to make the comparison that Leopold was the same because 'atrocity porn' was used against both. Hitler wasn't building an empire, he was reclaiming land taken after WWI. He was enabling Germans to provide for themselves economically, not exploit colonies. If Leopold had built an economic system so that Belgium would be self-reliant, I'd be defending him. But whether 10M were killed or simply and 'humanely' forced to spend their lives supplying rubber doesn't change the basic premise. Leopold 'owned' people, which makes him a slaveowner no matter what name he uses.
When I incidentally stumbled across the documentary “The 13 Sugar Colonies” I had no idea you had already covered this in such depth in your book. I just noticed that that documentary has since been removed from youtube [conveniently] on ‘copyright’ grounds so I am trying to re-upload a copy of the video here …
https://juliusskoolafish.substack.com/p/documentary-the-13-sugar-colonies
I had noticed it was removed when I went back to an old episode that embedded it. And yes the 'copyright' grounds seemed very fishy.
That documentary is definitely part of how I go back and read my own work differently now. At that time, I just had a vague sense of the 'financiers.' Now I see it as part of The Great Usurping by those who called themselves Jews, although I think that name was also usurped from the Judeans, with whom they have no genealogical or idealogical relationship.