HoltesThoughts

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Ode to Plutonium: Oh Fukushima!

Plutonium, named after the Ruler of hell; Invented in a science lab; Created in artificial Uranium hells; They call them reactor wells.; Uranium, Thorium, names that ought to strike fear.; Radioactive things that decay slowly, over thousands of years.; Til, tiny particles no one can ever see,; Fly out of atoms and strike them.; Then the fun begins.; Uranium, Thorium, can radioactively decay.; There are certain of their children who are dangerous and fey; And plutonium is a member of that game.; Plutonium can do more than decay.; It can break in two; Plutonium! made by the pennyweight, made by the ton; Turned into bombs, dropped on Nagasaki,; Built into armories, that can destroy cities by the thousands.; Monstrous Giant Spears of Death. Armaggedon's key.
Oh Fukushima! and we put them into water.: We put them into water to heat it to a boil; We sold it to the world, as a means to save men from toil; Plutonium would save the world; from toil and pain.; Plutonium would provide boundless energy; So cold northerners would never freeze again; But with barbaric idiocy,; they put it in bottles that break; And when they broke, they broke with mighty energy.
Oh Fukushima!: No water! It gets hot; Fuel Rods melt. Zirconium burns!; The storage pools are on top of the reactors; They melt and burn too.
: Fires burn, hot and unstoppable; As plutonium and U235 do what they do; They melt together and each atom breaks!; That is what they did!
Oh Fukushima!: Scatter and burn! Each fission reaction releases a stew of children!; Plutonium becomes barium and strontium!; It "bursts" when a neutron hits it; becoming a smoking, melting metallic stew.; They call this stew corium.

Oh Furkushima Corium!: It is a blob, a monster, an ever burning fiery magma.; So hot it burns water!; So unstoppable it burns through the places man thought he; A Creature of nightmares and holocausts.; A Child of Hope and hate.; A man-made Demon.; Smoking into the air, dissolving into the water.
Monster Corium! Oh Fukushima!: This demon released;; That only the hubris of men thinks can be contained.; that erupted, erupts into the world as a spirit of death.; ... and maybe end our lives.; Forming Hot particles that burn humans to death.; spreading around the world in plumes, radioactive wreaths.; Poisoning the North Atlantic, North America with fallout in dust and rain.; A statistical nightmare of Cancers, leukemias, weakness and pain.; It burns til it is all smoke. And it kills all manner of folk; Far from where it is released.
Oh Fukushima!: Will you kill us all?

Raymond Alcide Joseph: Earthquakes, Oppression and Haiti

Introduction

Raymond Alcide Joseph (born August 31, 1931) is a Haitian diplomat, political activist and journalist. He was the Haitian ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2010, when he resigned to present himself as a candidate in the 2010 Presidential Election in Haiti. He is the uncle of singer and rapper Wyclef Jean.

My wife, got to work with him and meet him when she was trying to organize student activities for her students at Howard University and showcase Ethiopian and Haitian multiculturalism. Matilde Raquel Holte was a teacher first, but in her own way she was also an activist. As a "Adjunct Professor", "visiting scholar", "Researcher" and Scholar she was able to go places other activists couldn't go and bridge political gaps that otherwise would never get bridged. We met Ambassador Joseph at an event held by the Ethiopian Embassy. I believe it was before the Earthquake. We also saw him again when the Ethiopians sponsored an event to try to help Haiti after it's big earthquake in 2010. My wife was interested in civil rights, multiculturalism, religious diaspora, Jews in the diaspora, and other diaspora's such as the one of African peoples. As such we got invited and I was there as "husband of", sometimes with my Camera, sometimes just trying to absorb all the information. I think I snapped this picture using our electronic Camera. But I'm not sure, I can't find it in my archives, so this may have been snapped by someone at the embassy because the only copy I can find is a grainy print on ordinary paper. I found it while looking up something else. Haiti and Ethiopia happened to be on my mind. This reminded me how I think he's one of the heros of his country. Ambassador Joseph was therefore already on my mind, so I immediately scanned by copy. His Facebook Home page is here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Raymond-Joseph-for-Haiti/104072289649198

In 2010 Haiti had a disaster, remember? Probably not. I do. It was horrendous. People died, not only from the Quake, but from neglect. Haiti was already a disaster before the Earthquake, and so the people were very fragile. A lot of folks died from that quake. And the country has been neglected since the beginning.

Modern History is grounded in Ancient History. And both Haiti and Ethiopia have a proud history as independent nations. And were independent, and to the consternation of White Folks, were "black" countries, where white skin was the anomaly. My wife, with her interest in multiculturalism and syncretism found both countries remarkable. I do too. I was privileged to visit the Embassy as "husband of" something I could never do as a Federal Contractor employee supporting IT operations and new development. I got to take the pictures. Including I think this one. We heard testimony from one Ethiopian Jew who was surprised when he left Ethiopia to find out there was such a thing as white Jews. Thanks to her I also met a member of the Lemba tribe who had had the same experience from his community near the border between South Africa and Mozambique.

At the conference on Ethiopian Jews, we heard testimony from "Beta Israel" (House Israel) Jews who, on leaving Ethiopia, were shocked that any Jews could ever be white. When they got to Israel they ran into discrimination from Ashkenazi Jews who were surprised Jews could be anything but what they were used to. And Ethiopians have paid a price for their independence in other ways.

For more on the Ethiopians see this article:: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/ethiopia-economic-isolation-versus-neo.html
For more on Haitian History (detail) read:: Bonapartism and Haiti
Further Reading:: http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/23944/a-haitian-tale; Bonapartism and Haiti [http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/bonapartism-and-haiti.html]
Declaration of Independence: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Online Sources & Further reading for Haiti:: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266962/Hispaniola; http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8a.html; http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8b.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti; http://www.historywiz.com/toussaint.htm; http://www.blackpast.org/gah/loverture-toussaint-1742-1803; http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600902/Toussaint-Louverture; http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/7.html; Actual book: Robert Heinl (1996). Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492-1995. Lantham, Maryland: University Press of America.; The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below By Carolyn E. Fick

Ethiopia; economic isolation versus neo-colonialism

Ethiopia

This is a piece of a larger article I'm still working on.

It turns out that Ethiopia has two communities that claim a tie with Jewish people. I knew about the explicitly Ethiopian Jews. They once had had their own country which endured for centuries in the Ethiopian Highlands. It was their experience my wife wrote about and encouraged some of her students to do papers on, and so was involved in these embassy events to highlight. It also turns out that Ethiopian Christians also claim a relationship with Israel. Their ruling dynasty, the Kings of Aksum, claimed descent through the Queen of Sheba. Many Ethiopians claim that Ethiopians were Jewish even before they converted to Christianity. Due to lifestyle and proximity to "Beta Israel" communities over millennia this relationship goes back to when Israel and Judah were independent Kingdoms and lasted through the centuries. Ethiopia represents a syncretism between Egyptian, Arabian/Middle Eastern and African cultures. It's language is an ancient language that has evolved over centuries under influences from that syncretism. It's people's center of culture was once on the Red Sea and they once dominated trade in the region.

The Ethiopians who controlled trade along the red sea were related to the Nubians and to tribes across the Red Sea in Arabia. And their Kings seem to have ruled multi-Ethnic kingdoms as Feudal "Kings of Kings" more on the Babylonian/Persian ancient model than a centralizing hegemonic empire in the Greek or Roman Style. And as such the Christian Kingdom sheltered the followers of Mohammed when he first began preaching, which protected them, for a time, from the depredations of fanatical freebooting Arabs. Eventually that relationship failed and tribes along the coast were either converted or forced to flee into the Mountains. And that is how the Modern Kingdom of Ethiopia gradually moved it's center of power to where it is now. It's also how the historical Center of Ethiopia, Eritrea, came to be a Muslim country. There was no "reconquista" because after centuries of depredations by the Arabs and Persians (now Muslim) the Christians came back from Europe, but this time they came a privateers and colonial powers, not as friends. The Christians wanted those coastal cities as stations for their fleets. Later they wanted them as coaling stations for their fleets. Fleets of "tall" merchant and war ships with heavy cannon loaded on multiple decks could blow away most smaller lighter merchants. And European Countries preyed on each other but ganged up on Muslim sailors. Ethiopia was cutoff from the Ocean and survived in isolation in the mountains too until it broke out of its isolation in the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia
For more on Ethiopia:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75GQ3rwxtZI

Friday, February 20, 2015

Postal Banking, Stamp Scripts and fixing our economic system

Follows http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/satans-usury-john-turmel-and-some-basic.html

Three Articles came out recently that show that John Turmel's

and other ideas previously considered "moonbat" are becoming mainstream. I guess that is why one of the articles ["A maverick currency scheme from the 1930s could save the Greek economy" ] is by George Monbiot (;-)) All of them involve the growing realization that our cycle of booms and busts, bubbles and swindles, is a design flaw, a worldwide constitutional flaw. This has to be fixed. And even the wealthy are starting to see that.

After describing the mess created by Austerity and an upside down European Confederation constitution. Monbiot notes a number of "radical" seeming ideas:

"One of these radical ideas was proposed a few months ago by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. He suggests stripping private banks of their remarkable power to create money out of thin air. Simply by issuing credit, they spawn between 95% and 97% of the money supply. If the state were to assert a monopoly on money creation, governments could increase their supply without increasing debt. Seigniorage (the difference between the cost of producing money and its value) would accrue to the state, adding billions of pounds to national coffers. The banks would be reduced to the servants, not the masters, of the economy." [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/17/currency-scheme-1930s-save-greek-economy-eurozone-crisis]

Of course this only makes sense due to the fact that our banks are constituted as privateers. They have a letter of marquee to make money and no restrictions on who they levy broadsides at in the process. And they do it with printed money ostensibly based on deposits from customers. However, on the other hand, Monbiot also notes that as Ann Pettifor notes:

"governments have failed to understand what money is. It should not be seen as a commodity, she says, but as a social relationship based on trust."

And of course because Banks create money taking away that power simply threatens to collapse the system even faster than banks do when the input of the "money multiplier" becomes negative. The problem is that money also is a token of wealth and a measure of wealth. If there isn't enough money in circulation for everyone to pay employees and buy stuff, the economy collapses. So while she's right that banks have been an improvement over the old usurous money lenders and over loan sharks. They do engage in usury by the mere fact of charging interest on money that really should be the property of the Governments. Martin Wolf is right and Ann Pettifor is only partly right. She should read John Turmel he nailed what is wrong with the system. Still Monbiot quotes her and notes:

"The supply of money is, in effect, unlimited: as long as there is sufficient productive activity to absorb it there is no obvious restraint on the amount of money that can be issued. So when governments and central bankers tell you that the money has run out, Pettifor argues, they are either deceiving us or deceiving themselves. What holds back economic activity is an unnecessary and artificial restriction of the medium of exchange." [Monbiot continued]

Silvio Gesell and Stamp Scripts

This is practically John Turmel verbatum. But Ann Pettifor claims "Banking’s great civilisational advance has been all but destroyed through deregulation" which is like blaming the cops for a bank robbery. But while Monbiot references both these writers. The heart of this subject is in a book, The Future of Money and in some real life applications of the ideas of Silvio Gesell. People driven by a shortage of valid money started creating their own money locally. Monbiot explains:

"In its original form, stamp scrip was a piece of paper on which a number of boxes were printed. The note would lose its validity unless a stamp costing 1% of its value was stuck in one of the boxes every month. In other words, the currency lost value over time, so there was no incentive to hoard it. Stamp scrip projects took off across Germany and Austria after national currencies collapsed in the early 1930s. In 1932, for example, the Austrian town of Wörgl was almost broke, unable to finance public works or to support its destitute population, until the mayor heard of Gesell’s proposal." [Monbiot continued]

This little pot of money kept circulating, enabling Wörgl to repave the streets, rebuild the water system He put up the town’s tiny remaining fund as collateral against the same value of stamp scrip, and used it to pay for a building project. The workers then passed on the currency as quickly as they could. Like the magic pudding, this little pot of money kept circulating, enabling Wörgl to repave the streets, rebuild the water system, construct houses, a bridge and even a ski jump. In the 13 months of the experiment, the 5,500 scrip schillings in circulation were spent 416 times, creating between 12 and 14 times as much employment as the standard currency would have done. Unemployment vanished, and the stamp fees paid for a soup kitchen feeding 220 families. [Monbiot continued]

So local money worked so well that where it was allowed it put people back to work and "cured" depression. Very encouraging. Sadly the Banksters were more important than the people and owned the government enough to nix this idea. Monbiot continues:

The governments of Germany and Austria, profoundly threatened by the success of these projects, shut them down and employment collapsed once more. When the US economist Irving Fisher examined these experiments he concluded that “the correct application of stamp scrip would solve the depression crisis in the US in three weeks!”. Roosevelt’s government, aware that such currencies could invoke a massive loss of federal power, promptly banned it.

Irving Fisher pushed this plan in the USA but couldn't get it accepted. But the Austrians? You'd think ole Ludwig Von Mises would have been an enthusiast for the idea. And after all he was:

“Engelbert Dollfuss [sc. was] ... the Austrian Chancellor who tried to prevent the Nazis from taking over Austria. During this period Mises was chief economist for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Before Dollfuss was murdered for his politics, Mises was one of his closest advisers.”

[Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Meaning of the Mises Papers,” Mises.org, April 1997 http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html]

So not to belabor the point. Von Mises wasn't really interested in Local Money and in squashed Wörgl's stamp script idea like a bug. I've quoted Von MIses and his history directly from books before. I'm quoting a blog for convenience. He, like EVERY SINGLE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL ECONOMIST preferred:

"“In tackling the economic crisis the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship pursued harsh deflationary policies designed to balance the budget and stabilize the currency. The government’s program featured severe spending cuts, high interest rates, and frozen wages. …. In a sense the Christian Corporative regime demonstrated the viability of the Austrian state, but it did so at the cost of alienating a majority of the Austrian people. On the eve of Anschluss a third of the population was still out of work, while those fortunate enough to have jobs were bringing home paychecks considerably smaller than before the Great War” http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html

Von Mises later gives Gesell's ideas lip service, but the reality is that their solution to economy is banker rule and all the talk about doing away with Central Banks is aimed at getting them out of the way of privatizing money. Now Austria may have done better than the United States. But Von Mises' alienation of Austrian working people (and pretty much everyone else) is probably what put him so easily in German sapper targets. Von Mises fled Austria to move to Switzerland in the wake of Dolfuss' assassination. And contributing to that was that, instead of looking out for everyone, he imposed austerity. Van Hayek would later give the exact same economic and political policy advice to the Chilean Dictator Pinochet. So much for smaller government - but they will make it part of their propaganda.

"Linked to an exhausted determination of the Austrian government to resist the pressures from Germany, the economic crisis of the 1930s should be seen as an additional reason why the Austrian society was receptive to the annexation by Germany in March 1938” (Gerlich and Campbell 2000: 55)." http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html

As to why the United States failed to apply Fisher's ideas. That is part of the narrative I'm driving at. If we want to fix our economy permanently we have to fix our banking system and money system. Not just in the USA but worldwide. And the reason that Roosevelt and Fisher couldn't implement Gesell's ideas is one reason that we are facing similar problems again. The good news is that Fisher never shut up, and Gesell's ideas are making a come back as folks like Monbiot and others start to listen to Chomsky and those who picked up the standard. Gesell's ideas were tried both during the Great Depression and also in the middle 2004-2008 period when Argentina's economy collapsed after the IMF and World Banking community attacked their currency and forced them off of 1:1 exchange with the dollar. I experienced this first hand while visiting the country, seeing local articles about how ordinary entrepreneurial Argentines homesteaded factories abandoned by the economic elites and failed companies.

Next Article: Irving Fisher and Stamp Script [http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/irving-fisher-and-stamp-script.html]; http://www.i-r-e.org/docs/blancaccelerated.pdf; Hard to read/poor translation: http://www.slideshare.net/LocalMoney/silvio-gesell-the-natural-economic-order-11957639?related=1; http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/05/mises-and-great-depression-in-austria.html; http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.com/2008/09/market-economy-without-capitalism.html
More on Stamp Scripts:: http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/; http://www.bullnotbull.com/blog-archive/p49.htm; http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/fisher/stamp4.html
A Biography of Gesell:: https://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/cawm/forschen/Download/Diskbeitraege/Gesell_Ilgmann-2011-CAWM-Discussion-Paper.pdf
Related Articles:: Our Officers earn themselves a "black spot" -- piracy in Business Government http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/01/our-officers-earn-themselves-black-spot.html; The Great Deformation -- Introduction to the "Good Money" debate http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-great-deformation-introduction-to.html; The only trickle down I see, are them marking my feet http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-only-trickle-down-i-see-are-them.html; Long Con Swindle of America, legalizing swindles through corrupt politics -- http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/wall-streets-long-con-swindle-of-america.html; Money isn’t a Bubble or a Ponzi Scheme (or Shouldn’t be) http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/10/money-isnt-bubble-or-ponzi-schemes.html; "Coddling" the Giant Oligarchic Companies http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/06/coddling-giant-oligarchic-companies.html; Worstall, Krugman and John Henry -- Why we need minimum wages at the minimum [http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/worstall-krugman-and-john-henry-why-we.html]; Satan's Usury, John Turmel and some basic observation about our Banking system http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/satans-usury-john-turmel-and-some-basic.html; Postal Banking, Stamp Scripts and fixing our economic system http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/02/postal-banking-stamp-scripts-and-fixing.html

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Trinity Church and Captain Kidd

Aristocracy, Trinity Church and Commoners

The first thing I noticed was that successful pirates joined the gentry. Unsuccessful ones were hung. This is illustrated by the tale of Captain Kidd who was elevated to Captain "pirate style" and not due to his family relations like most officers during the 9 years war "War of the Grand Alliance" [1688-1697]:

"By 1689 he was a member of a French-English pirate crew that sailed in the Caribbean. Kidd and other members of the crew mutinied, ousted the captain off the ship, and sailed to the British colony of Nevis. There they renamed the ship Blessed William. Kidd became captain, either the result of an election of the ship's crew or because of appointment by Christopher Codrington, governor of the island of Nevis. Captain Kidd and Blessed William became part of a small fleet assembled by Codrington to defend Nevis from the French, with whom the English were at war."

They were granted "Letters of marquee by the Governor, because that is the way that the English paid for Naval Warfare:

"Kidd and his men attacked the French island of Mariegalante, destroyed the only town, and looted the area, gathering for themselves something around 2,000 pounds Sterling." [Wikipedia article makes a great first stop: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd]

Continuing the fight:

"Kidd captured an enemy privateer off the New England coast."

But of course the borders between piracy and privateering were thin:

"One year later [1690], Captain Robert Culliford, a notorious pirate, stole Kidd's ship while he was ashore at Antigua in the West Indies." [Wikipedia article makes a great first stop: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kidd]

When you read about Robert Culliford. Culliford partisans claim Kidd was a pirate and that Culliford started as Kidd's Shipmate and "repeatedly check[ed] the designs" through his career. According to them Culliford led a mutiny against Kid in 1790 and appointed William Mason as Captain. All the stories of these pirates are full of these sort of inconsistencies, including some of the official records. Having his prize taken from him didn't stop Kidd from migrating to New York and:

"On 16 May 1691, Kidd married Sarah Bradley Cox Oort, an English woman in her early twenties, who had already been twice widowed and was one of the wealthiest women in New York, largely because of her inheritance from her first husband."

Privateering and piracy were means to wealth and respectability. From 1692-1697 the Governor of New York was Benjamin Fletcher, who traded in both privateering and pirate loot. Kidd contributed to Trinity Church, New York which was funded by privateering and pirate activity. Apparently New York City and Philadelphia were rivals in the Pirate trade during that time too. In 1697 Fletcher was deposed from the Governorship by Edward Randolph who is also famous for revoking the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and who the Boston revolt in 1689 was jailed. It appears that one mans "privateer" and hero could easily be tried as another's pirate -- unless he was part of an important family like the Randolphs. Edward Randolph tried to revoke the charters of all the colonies in 1700 and was defeated. [Britannica: Edward Randolph

Culliford was caught after robbing the Great Mohammed in the Red Sea in September 1698 but pardoned and "disappeared" from history (probably settled down and changed his name or into anonymity). William Mason retired a rich man. Web Sites like The Pirate King may_william.htm depict them as pirates, but the reality is that they straddled the line between respectability and piracy as did, apparently, most of the ships and crews of those privateering times, and probably many of the ships of the Royal Navy. If they'd taken the "Great Mohammed" one year earlier the prize probably would have been legal. In 1698 the war was over.

Pirate Yarns and Nomme Du Guerres

So it's not surprising that pinning down these characters, or even their names, was hard. They went to sea to make money. And whether that money came from looting ships, smuggling, delivering slaves to plantations, or catching fish or whales didn't matter so much as the prizes of wealth and respectability. Many of them became adrenaline junkies (like Blackbeard is said to have done) and perished. But many more retired in the end to quiet lives and wealthy family legacies. Next time I go into Trinity Church I'll think of Captain Kidd.

The British weren't going to punish their privateering warriors in time of warfare. But if they didn't stop when the war was ended they were in trouble diplomatically. William Kidd probably didn't know the war was over when he overstepped his bounds:

"in January 1698, Kidd's luck seemingly changed when he caught sight of the Quedagh Merchant rounding the tip of India.

The war was over. English privateers were not supposed to be preying on ships on the open ocean.

"The Quedagh Merchant was no ordinary vessel. A 500-ton Armenian ship, it carried goods—a treasure trove of gold, silk, spices, and other riches—that were owned in part by a minister at the court of the Indian Grand Moghul. The minister had powerful connections, and when news about Kidd's attack reached him he complained to the East India Company, the large and influential English trading firm. Coupled with many governments' shifting perceptions of piracy, Kidd was quickly cast as a wanted criminal."

Kidds mistake was to try to clear his name. What he should have done was what his rivals; Mason and Culliford did; quietly go to ground. If he had his name would probably be on the list of famous and wealthy families in the United States history books. And his descendants captains of industry and finance. But by trying to clear his name he got himself put on the Gimlet. On the other hand, folks wonder where his treasure went. I would suggest they ask descendents of Sarah Bradley Cox Oort who I'm sure he took care of before trying to clear his name. Buried treasure? Yeah, sure.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Bonapartism and Haiti

Haiti, started as a paradise of indigenous Arawak people's. Christopher Columbus admired the Island of "Hispaniola" so much he had it conquered. It also was known as "Santa Dominica" by the Spaniards. But apparently the Indiginous Arawaks called it the "Land of Mountains" or Haiti (also Taino Hayiti) [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Haiti]. The land was enslaved by Spaniards, whose violent methods of land management over-worked, starved and enabled epidemics which killed their tenants both workers and rebels alike. To replace the dead the Spaniards brought in African Slaves. Even so the Spaniards, not being able to find a productive long term crop and keep their slaves alive wound up abandoning much of the Island to local herdsmen (Buccaneers), escaped slaves, pirates, foreigners and escaped sailors since many sailors were essentially treated as slaves. This led to the Western Part of the Island being dominated by French and Dutch Pirates and eventually to the Western part becoming a French Colony. The Eastern Part remained a Spanish Colony, but the Western part became a massive slave state producing Tobacco, Indigo, Cotton and Cacao. Prompting massive importation of African slaves to replace systematically killed by disease, overwork, hunger and oppression. Over time the French added Sugar Cane and Coffee. Haiti became a French powerhouse for producing valuable goods for it's slave owners. And a hell for the slaves.

Inspired by the principles and actions of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Slaves all over the world heard of the principles of the American Revolution despite laws banning reading, education or conversation on the subject. After all a slave owner, Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence to include this line:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

It doesn't matter if they weren't thinking of poor whites, much less women or black folks. They were think of rallying the troops to fight the British, but one has to be careful in uttering mighty words. They are arrows that go where they will go and usually can't be retrieved until they do so. Maybe Jefferson did mean it. Certainly many of the Elites trying to take over from British Elites wanted those codicils and provisos. But the rest of us can, and do, take those words on their face value. "All Men" means "all men", not "all free men" or "all white males with property." There is good reason why folks think the Declaration of Independence should be part of the constitution and some cretins think it already is. Universal declarations do apply universally, no matter how much greedy people, politicians or lawyers want to add codicils and catch 22s to them. The slaves of Haiti revolted. They had a right to. Slavery is unjust. The Wikipedia article quotes:

"Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars? Have they not forced them to eat excretement? And, having flayed them with the lash, have they not cast them alive to be devoured by worms, or onto anthills, or lashed them to stakes in the swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup? Have they not put men and women inside barrels studded with spikes and rolled them down mountainsides into the abyss? Have they not consigned these miserable blacks to man-eating dogs until the latter, sated by human flesh, left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard?" [Taken from History of Haiti

What happened to the Indians (near extermination/holocaust) was nearly being repeated with black slaves. Slavery demanded an ever flowing replenishment of slaves from Africa as long as the plantations were going. In the USA when they abolished the slave trade greedy small scale slavers took to "breeding" slaves like cattle to be sold to the plantations. Plantations were farming factories that depended on slave labor to be profitable, yet were constantly in debt to banks due to the avariciousness of their owners, vagaries of climate, and extractive agricultural methods. They picked on Black people because they were the best at agriculture and could endure the harsh climates. And eventually those people revolted in Haiti, and would have revolted in the United States had not our local Governments used militia and private troops to hold them down.

The George Mason Article notes that before the revolt:

"The Caribbean colonies were quick to respond to the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789. The white planters of Saint Domingue sent delegates to France to demand representation at the new National Assembly, as did the mulattos. Several prominent deputies in the National Assembly belonged to the Society of the Friends of Blacks, which put forth proposals for the abolition of the slave trade and the amelioration of the lot of slaves in the colonies. When these proposals fell on deaf ears, some deputies sympathetic to blacks turned to arguing that full civil and political rights should be granted to free blacks in the colonies. Before long, radical journalists in Paris began to take up the cause of black slaves, pushing for the abolition of slavery, or at least for a more positive view of the Africans. The pioneering feminist and playwright, Olympe de Gouges, also wrote a pamphlet challenging the colonial pro-slavery lobby to improve the lot of the blacks." [http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8a.html]

The slave owners of Haiti foolishly thought they could revolt against their masters and not expect their own slaves to revolt against them:

"the white planters mounted their own counter attack and even contemplated demanding independence from France....In October 1789 [the royal governor of Saint Domingue] reported that the slaves considered the new revolutionary cockade (a decoration made up of red, white, and blue ribbons worn by supporters of the Revolution) a "signal of the manumission of the whites . . . the blacks all share an idea that struck them spontaneously: that the white slaves kill their masters and now free they govern themselves and regain possession of the land." In other words, the black slaves hoped to follow in the footsteps of their white predecessors, freeing themselves, killing their masters, and taking over the land." [chap8a.html]

They weren't about to "do the right thing" because:

" Fabulous wealth depended on slavery, as did shipbuilding, sugar-refining, and a host of subsidiary industries. Slaveowners and shippers did not intend to give up their prospects without a fight. The U.S. refusal to give up slavery or the slave trade provided added ammunition to support their position." [chap8a.html]

And the planters didn't even want to extend those rights to free blacks and "mulattos" (mixed race)

"The March 1790 decree said nothing about the political rights of free blacks, who continued to press their demands both in Paris and back home, but to no avail. In October 1790, 350 mulattos rebelled in Saint Domingue. French army troops cooperated with local planter militias to disperse and arrest them. In February 1791 the mulatto leaders, including James Ogé, were publicly executed. Nevertheless, on 15 May 1791, under renewed pressure from the abbé Grégoire and others, the National Assembly granted political rights to all free blacks and mulattos who were born of free mothers and fathers. Though this proviso limited rights to a few hundred free blacks, the white colonists furiously pledged to resist the application of the law." [http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8b.html]

The result was that free blacks and mulattos united with their unfree brethren:

"Just a few months later, on 22 August 1791, the slaves of Saint Domingue rose up in rebellion, initiating what was to become over the next several years the first successful slave revolt in history. In response, the National Assembly rescinded the rights of free blacks and mulattos on 24 September 1791, prompting them once again to take up arms against the whites. Slaves burned down plantations, murdered their white masters, and even attacked the towns. Fighting continued as the new Legislative Assembly (it replaced the National Assembly in October 1791) considered free black rights again at the end of March 1792. On 28 March, the assembly voted to reinstate the political rights of free blacks and mulattos. Nothing was done about slavery." [Chap8b]

Toussaint L'Ouverture

In Haiti the 1791 revolt was quelled but in 1793 the slave revolts started to be more successful, partly because capable leadership emerged along with the usual Social Dominators. Toussaint L'Ouverture was among those "free blacks" who had taught himself to read and right and acquired his liberty. And he was a natural leader and a smart general:

"Out of the fighting emerged one of the most remarkable figures of the era, Toussaint L'Ouverture, a slave who learned to read and write and in the uprising rose to become the leading general of the slave rebels. Toussaint faced incredible obstacles in creating a coherent resistance." [chap8b]

Toussaint L'Ouverture understood the importance of strategy:

"He soon discerned the ineptitude of the rebel leaders and scorned their willingness to compromise with European radicals. Collecting an army of his own, Toussaint trained his followers in the tactics of guerrilla warfare. In 1793 he added to his original name the name of Louverture." [Britannica article]

Toussaint L'ouverture understood the importance of Training, tactics, strategy, provisioning, and selecting the right temporary allies from one's enemies:

"When France and Spain went to war in 1793, the black commanders joined the Spaniards of Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola. Knighted and recognized as a general, Toussaint demonstrated extraordinary military ability and attracted such renowned warriors as his nephew Moïse and two future monarchs of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe. Toussaint’s victories in the north, together with mulatto successes in the south and British occupation of the coasts, brought the French close to disaster. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600902/Toussaint-Louverture]

However, the French were also fighting the British and their leader Légere-Félicité_Sonthonax [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Légere-Félicité_Sonthonax] who was the political head of the French Revolutionary forces took "the radical step of proclaiming the freedom of the slaves in the north province" on 29 August 1793.

This seems to have won over Toussaint, in May 1794 he:

"went over to the French, giving as his reasons that the French National Convention had recently freed all slaves, while Spain and Britain refused, and that he had become a republican." [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600902/Toussaint-Louverture]

The Haitian Slaves and some of the Free Blacks and Mulattos now had an ally from France who could be relied on a bit more than the Aristocratic British or French. And the combination of his victories in battle and his willingness to turn on the opportunist English and Spanish gave him recognition and power. The Britannica article continues:

"He has been criticized for the duplicity of his dealings with his onetime allies and for a slaughter of Spaniards at a mass. His switch was decisive; the governor of Saint-Domingue, Étienne Laveaux, made Toussaint lieutenant governor, the British suffered severe reverses, and the Spaniards were expelled." [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600902/Toussaint-Louverture]

This doesn't seem to be that duplicitous to me. Laveaux and Légere-Félicité_Sonthonax had an Army of French Soldiers, were fighting the Royalist oriented White Colonists and if the Mulattos had gone over the Spanish they still weren't on the side of freeing the slaves. If he had he not switched sides to the side willing to recognize manumission it's likely that the Spaniards and the Brits would have turned on him, just as they did on other temporary allies around the world once they were done using them to defeat an enemy. The Spanish refused to abolish slavery and the Brits had every intention of subjugating everybody.

So Toussaint was Lieutenant Governor from 1794, and effectively governor over the entire country. In 1795 the French and Spanish signed a treaty which took out the impetus for continued fighting with the Spanish. By 1796 Toussaint was essentially more powerful than either Laveaux or Légere-Félicité_Sonthonax, and he tried to get them elected to be representatives of Haiti in France. By 1797 both were out of the country. . By 1798 the Brits were forced out.

Sadly from 1798 on the French "Empire" began to strike back. The French sent a duplicitous "commissioner" Hédouville to try to bring Toussaint down by dividing him against other leaders, disbanding black troops from the Haitian Army, and in the process restarting the slave revolts. Hédouville especially worked to divide Toussaint, who was the supreme leader of blacks and slaves and André Rigaud. In his resistance to Hédouville Toussaint made a secret treaty with the Brits and Americans in that same year. Toussaint knew that slavery couldn't be ended by simple emancipation and so had simply imposed limits on the tyranny of the plantations, not eliminated them. They had to pay workers and could not whip them. But they still were under compulsion to work the plantation. So he didn't directly eliminate slavery. Meanwhile from 1798 to 1802 the French lost their spirit of "universal rights." And Haitian Mulattos were seduced into stepping into the hierarchy of power (Plantation ownership, bourgeoisie and police powers the pure whites had been forced out of.[haitihistory/8.html]

So sadly by 1799 the conflict that Hédouville (and others) had sought to instigate broke out:

"Civil war between Louverture and Rigaud breaks out: Rigaud takes over command of Léogâne and Jacmel while Louverture take over Petit-Goâve. This power struggle, fraught with issues of race and class, ultimately benefits the economic interests of the Americans and British, who seek to maximize their trade to the detriment of the French." [haitihisotry/8.html]

Haiti was in the process of transitioning from Colonialism to neo-colonialism, where local elites could be counted on to benefit the power and perquisites of a worldwide network of giant companies and banks. And key to this in Hispanola would be a class structure based on race and education. Toussaint defeated Rigaud, and he drove him out of the country. But he was quick to pardon Rigaud's officers. And in 1800 he reimposes the mandates first pioneered by Légere Félicité Sonthonax which by that time were seen as a reimposition of slavery. In response Toussaint brought about a Constitutional Convention and setup a representative government, including abolishing slavery forever in 1801. This causes a rare alliance between Brits, Americans and French. Probably their first. Sadly resistance to his work mandates leads to his own former lieutenants (including Moïse) revolting over the perceived oppression. A revolt breaks out which Toussaint suppresses in 1801, executing his own nephew in the process.

It looks like Toussaint was too willing to support the rights of land owners. But I think he was just trying to toe a fine line between some very powerful external forces and his own people's desire for freedom. The Timeline Article explicitly shows what he was up against by 1801.

In October 1801:

"Leclerc sails from France for Saint-Domingue. He is Commander-in-Chief of France’s largest expeditionary army ever with 20,000 European troops, who are called “the elite of the French army.” Rochambeau is named second in command. Bonaparte gives Leclerc very specific instructions on the stages of the expedition, which he expects will take three months." [http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/9.html]

There is no mistaking the mission and purpose. Toussaint may have understood what he was up against. But Napoleon was not someone who could be trusted or negotiated with and his General LeClerk was the same. It was the same strategy that Hédouville had employed but with 20,000 troops and veteran generals to reinforce veteran French troops who were already in Haiti.

First stage,

15-20 days: Leclerc is to convince Saint-Domingue residents of France’s good will and peaceful intentions. Leclerc is to claim the troops are there to protect the colony and preserve its peace, allowing the troops to land and take control of the major port cities. [http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/9.html]

Second stage:

"wage war against the rebel army generals to break the masses’ moral and leave them leaderless." [http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/9.html]

Third stage:

"disarm all the blacks and mulattoes and force them back onto plantations to reinstate slavery. Bonaparte’s commands to Leclerc include “Do not allow any blacks having held a rank above that of a captain to remain on the island.”[http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/9.html]

3 Months was over-optimistic. 3 Years, however, was accurate. Toussaint was waiting for him. On the 4th of February 1802, "General Christophe sets fire to Le Cap, burning it to the ground in anticipation of the European troops’ arrival." When LeClerk arrives he demands Louverture's surrender. Seeing that the Haitians are not going to Surrender Napoleon sends an additional 80,000 troops in 1803 along with support and military ships. For perspective, the British expeditionary force dealing with the American Revolutionaries in the 1770's had 36,000 troops. This was more than 100,000 troops to put down Haiti's independence and reinstate slavery in a country the size of Maryland. All sent by Napoleon with the moral support of Jefferson and property Owners around the American colonies who saw their aristocratic plantation life threatened. Stage One was completed despite the burning of Le Cap.

In 1802 Toussaint faced an obstacle. Most of the Mulatto Generals including Alexandre Pétion, Jean-Pierre Boyer and other former Rigaud followers defected to the French promises. Toussaint's warnings of what the French were up to were intercepted. His loyal followers found themselves isolated and betrayed. Stage 2 was already in motion before the 80,000 troops even had arrived. The article notes:

"Louverture hastily sends instructions to his leaders throughout the colony, warning that the French intend to restore slavery. All of his letters are intercepted and one by one his generals defect to fight for the French. Dessalines and Christophe are trapped in the North. By mid-February nearly half of Louverture’s army is fighting under Leclerc, who gains entire control of the South." [9.html]

Even so in March 1802 in the battle of Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot Toussaint's loyal General Dessalines beat off 12,000 European soldiers and Colonial Militia with 1,500 black troops. Dessalines also managed to withdraw his troops safely after the holding action marking a turning point in the war, But meanwhile Louverture's other General Henri Christophe was sent to talk to Leclerk, And deserted!

After that Toussaint realized his own position was pretty much untenable. Leclerc made a cynical offer that would "allow him to retire with his staff, retain his army ranks and functions, and retire to a place of his choosing." In the process Dessalines is forced to stop resisting the French (temporarily) as well. Leclerk promptly betrays his promise as instructed by Napoleon in the first instance!

"Leclerc lures Louverture into a conference, arrests him, binds him “as a common criminal,” and ships him to France with his family and manservant. He is incarcerated and left “tragically, to die of consumption in an isolated prison cell high in the French Alps.”" [9.html]

With Toussaint out of the way the French still faced resistance. It soon became obvious what they were up to and even the Mulatto's who had betrayed Toussaint joined together in a final revolt which threw off the French. By November 1803 Leclerc was dead of Yellow Fever and Rochambeau was defeated. The Haitians had thrown off the French. Though the seeds of years of struggle between Mulattos and blacks, Spanish speaking Islanders and French speaking ones had been sowed. And the reinslavement project of the European powers would lead to years of forced payments, oppression, interventions and invasions. Eventually that project would be taken over by the USA/Americans. Many of the Generals who had alternatively supported and betrayed Toussaint L'ouverture would alternatively support, betray and rule Haiti.

Economic Royalism had taken a new form. No longer were the Aristocrats "Kings" but they were Capitalists and "Emperors" creating merchant empires with troops and modern weapons; and the support of local rulers willing to betray each other and their own ideals. Dessalines would be Hait's first Emperor. Henri Christophe would be his successor. Alexandre Pétion would be his competitor and the "first President" in 1806-1818. He'd be replaced with Jean-Pierre Boyer who would also try to be a "President for Life" and be succeeded by Charles Rivière-Hérard who overthrew him in a revolution.... etc, etc, etc...

Further Reading:: http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/23944/a-haitian-tale
Declaration of Independence: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Online Sources & Further reading for Haiti:: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266962/Hispaniola; http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8a.html; http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8b.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti; http://www.historywiz.com/toussaint.htm; http://www.blackpast.org/gah/loverture-toussaint-1742-1803; http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600902/Toussaint-Louverture; http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/7.html; Actual book: Robert Heinl (1996). Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People, 1492-1995. Lantham, Maryland: University Press of America.; The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below By Carolyn E. Fick

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Devil's Advocate

I thought I published this once before, years ago. (definitely years ago since the sweetness is gone) Probably as a news group post. But here it is again, slightly updated:

The rotten words have a certain charm,

properly composted they'd grow a farm.

He phrases his words in sweet terms and reasoning,

advocating things he himself doesn't believe

Why would he do such a thing?

Is his intent to deceive?

He makes the case so very well,

That the smoke wafting up from hell,

the sulfur odor, seems just another garden smell,

despite the underlying rottenness.

He is playing the devil's advocate

But where is the heavenly side?

Where is the Judge to preside?

Where is the truth?

Where is the advocate for truth?

The devil's advocate,

advocates to find the truth.

His limits are facts. He never lies.

though he defends vigorously as charged.

Thoroughly airing the truth, examining the lies

puncturing myths, to allow the light;

Satan as God's prosecutor

Without the airing of lies,

there can't be any refutation.

Without the action of air and rain,

Lies only kill.

And lies, displayed as myths,

form a crust over putrification

But there are people who are the devil's friend

For them truth is not as important as securing the win,

Hiding facts, distorting the truth, advocating for the devil.

Such people are advocating for the devil.

With selfish motives which shred any pretense of integrity.

In a poisoned world of lies,

that smell will remain, tightly bound,

Turned into myths, facts pounded down,

Until the crust of lies breaks,

And it will emerge with a noxious plume,

that kills all who are forced to breathe it.

Evil see's lies as his friend.

Putrid lies and distortions, anger and conflict,

bring destruction, and misery that never end.

Don't we want the lies to end?

These Devil's advocates are the Devil's friend.

Can these people be saved?

Can he change his stripes once he's put on this skin?

Can he get on the mark after missing in sin?

Can be dionysian and at the same time Manichean?

Can his secrets ever be more than lies?

Is one trapped in lies,

when one subverts the truth?

If anything they say is untrue.

...though the rotten words have a certain charm...

....they are lies.

....and lies are death