In the first post in this series I explained that capitalism was "invented," or better said, "discovered," on a person by person basis by farmers. I gave you a definition of capitalism that is, rather than using technical terms and theoretical concepts, a statement of how capitalism first arose, and thus should be the constant model for successful understanding and use of capitalism. This definition of capitalism is as follows.
A farming family grows corn for its own survival, since that is what the family and their livestock consumes. This is called "subsistence," which is the bare minimum of necessity that allows the family to survive. When the family reaches a point of stability of production of their "necessary" amount of corn, they may prosper enough to produce more corn than they need, and this extra is called "surplus." Surplus corn is sold in the market for cash. The process by which the surplus is transacted for cash is called "capitalism." The term "supply and demand" is not the same as capitalism, nor is the term "the market," because those are the techniques by which the surplus is produced, priced and successfully sold (or not). Thus those are devices and mechanisms of capitalism, not capitalism itself.
I gave an example of bad decision making in the previous post, where I explain that the ethanol initiative erroneously cut into the subsistence level of corn, rather than focus on producing surplus corn for the express use of ethanol. I chose that example because it's one that received a lot of press plus everyone can understand it. Plus it was an obvious easy step from my "corn" subsistence and surplus definition of capitalism.
Now that you, dear readers, have had a chance to think about my first post on this subject, I want to summarize the error that has crept into modern assumptions about capitalism and also show you another "right out of today's news" example of how to spot the errors and have correct interpretation of statements, perspectives and events instead.
The problem that everyone has with understanding and correctly managing (or laissez faire "allowing" of) capitalism is that they treat the "subsistence" part of the economy and people's lives as if it is the "surplus." That is the great error in contemporary capitalism, and thus it is not true to the spirit of capitalism. Capitalism was never meant to rule subsistence goods and products. Capitalism arose in the global culture whereby individuals and families were able to glean the food and shelter they needed for their own survival with their own hands, so long as they were able bodied and they lived in locations and times when survival was successful. Thus capitalism always referred to surplus products, not subsistence products.
So let's look back to the ethanol disaster model of capitalism done totally wrong. There are two errors. The first is that a product, ethanol, was legislated, rather than coming into development because there was a market demand. Ethanol is an option, not a subsistence essential. Gasoline is, on our modern economy, a subsistence essential. Ethanol is a variation that in theory offered attractive market attributes (domestically produced and allegedly lower emissions). Thus as a non-subsistence product the market should have "demanded" (that is, freely wanted and desired) ethanol, rather than it being legislated as governmental policy.
The second error is that the raw material used in production of ethanol, corn, is a subsistence product, because it is a food that is essential to both humans and livestock, and thus the subsistence level of corn should not have been touched or used by the ethanol "initiative." Surplus corn should have been planned, generated and grown for any ethanol initiative, rather than force a subsistence product, being food and livestock corn, to "go to the market" and allow ethanol producers to exploit subsistence product, thus causing great price and availability instability. As a result "surplus" principles (supply and demand, "the market is always right," and so forth) were forced upon the "subsistence" portion of the equation, which is a grave economic and moral error.
So now whenever you hear someone talk about "supply and demand," "market forces," and "the market is always right," you would be correct and indeed you must insist that those principles apply only to "surplus" product, not "subsistence" product. This is not the same as "price fixing" by the way. I am not saying that subsistence product must be forced to be "affordable." What I am saying is that subsistence product will always be affordable so long as it is not contaminated by the risk that rightly belongs only to the "surplus" side of the capitalism equation.
Therefore, I will give you the first hint of how to think of the mortgage crisis. Housing is, at its basic level, "subsistence," as everyone needs shelter. Housing can be enhanced to be "surplus," in that it can be "more than you need." The economic "masters of the universe" were allowed to force virtually all housing from surplus into subsistence. Only surplus priced (and therefore "risky") housing was offered, and replaced in total the supply of subsistance priced housing. In other words, they raised the prices of all housing to "surplus" levels, and thus put them into the surplus "supply and demand" and "risk" pool, eliminating the supply of "subsistence" low, stable, widely available and safely priced houses. I'm amazed that this disaster survived as long as it did. For twenty years all houses have been deliberately over priced so that people were forced to take "surplus" risk and pay "surplus" prices for what should have been "subsistence" housing. That is not "capitalism," that is looting and immorality. Enabling people who needed subsistence priced housing into surplus priced housing compounded rather than fixed the error, because it allowed all real estate producers, investors and gamblers to maintain surplus housing pricing over the entire economy, forcing the disappearance in total of subsistence priced housing. Thus the "activists" share the blame with the "gamblers," because both colluded to enable that subsistence priced housing disappears and is replaced by surplus priced housing.
I hope this is helpful. I'm sure that is it. In the next post I will show you how to read an opinion piece in a newspaper and identify what part of capitalism (or not) the "experts" are talking about, and the errors (or good points) that they may be making. This will help you to discern the correctness and context of both the "facts" and the experts' "opinions." In future tutorials I will explain how both liberals and conservatives are "wrong," and how they have both forgotten and been herded into an erroneous definition of capitalism.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Pope opens synod, warns about Godless society
It is essential that people listen to the Holy Father and believe. The crisis of humanity is very dire. The more that humans disbelieve in God and inflate their own self importance, the lower and more depressive humans actually become, rather than be "enlightened" or "uplifted."
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=d8f1c44f-8049-402c-98a3-d668ee2bdaec
snip
ROME -- Pope Benedict opened a major Vatican meeting on Sunday by decrying a modern culture so devoid of faith that some people were declaring God 'dead' and entire nations were losing their identity.
The 81-year-old German pope made his comments in the homily of a mass opening a month-long synod of Roman Catholic bishops from around the world who will be discussing God's message through Scripture.
He said nations that were "once rich in faith" were now "losing their identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture."
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=d8f1c44f-8049-402c-98a3-d668ee2bdaec
snip
ROME -- Pope Benedict opened a major Vatican meeting on Sunday by decrying a modern culture so devoid of faith that some people were declaring God 'dead' and entire nations were losing their identity.
The 81-year-old German pope made his comments in the homily of a mass opening a month-long synod of Roman Catholic bishops from around the world who will be discussing God's message through Scripture.
He said nations that were "once rich in faith" were now "losing their identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture."
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Capitalism is easy to understand and interesting
Forget everything you thought you knew about the "definition" of capitalism. Here is an easy to understand explanation of what it really is, as a springboard from my previous post about history.
Capitalism is what you have when an individual or a family grows enough food to meet their own needs to eat, and also grows an extra amount that it sells for cash. That is the definition and origin of capitalism.
The extra amount of food that is grown is called a "surplus." The fact that it is sold for cash is capitalism. For example, if it was swapped for a different type of food, that is called "bartering" and is not capitalism.
Many people define capitalism as being "the law of supply and demand," but that is not true. Supply and demand is the method by which the family sets and obtains a cash price for their surplus.
For example, cars run on gasoline, but a car was not built because someone was looking for a use for gasoline. Thus supply and demand is like gasoline for a car. It is the method by which the car runs. So supply and demand is the method by which the family prices and then settles on cash for their surplus.
For example, suppose that a family grows corn. They grow enough corn to feed themselves, and some extra that they can sell. One year corn is abundant, so they don't get a very high price for their extra corn. But the next year corn is either scarce due to crop failures or in high demand because of extra usages of corn becoming popular, so the family gets a higher price for their surplus corn than they did the year before. That is an example of supply and demand fluctuating from year to year, and thus an example of "low demand" one year followed by "high demand" the next year.
Here is another example. Suppose a family really likes broccoli. They grow enough to meet their own needs to eat, and also some surplus. But when they go to sell their surplus broccoli they find that no one else has a taste for it like they do. They either cannot sell it or they settle for a low price figuring that even a small amount of cash is gravy since their primary reason to grow the broccoli is their own eating habits. That is an example of supply and demand that illustrates a "low demand" situation.
Farmers invented capitalism. It's not a devious tool of evil western bankers. Capitalism was the natural and healthy outcome of human culture, family by family, raising itself up from subsistence farming (that means farming that yields just enough for the family to be able to eat and not starve) to having surplus that it can sell. Capitalism is as natural as rain. Capitalism has nothing to do with greed and exploitation. Capitalism is grassroots; it sprang up on the family by family boundary between "having just enough to live" to "having something extra to sell." So no one "invented" capitalism and it exists everywhere in all cultural systems. What is invented is the methods of obtaining cash (the demand mechanism), gauging interest in the surplus (the supply mechanism) and the reaching of markets where the deals are struck.
Every family should have this original mindset of capitalism if it wants to be healthy, even though people in developed countries are no longer subsistence farmers. There are several reasons for why this is important. One is that you cannot help impoverished people elsewhere in the world if you do not understand and support this form of capitalism. "Surplus being taken to market" is THE way that people are lifted out of poverty. That is why a "handout" mentality fails. Of course you need to supply emergency and subsistence food, medicine and shelter as stop gap measures. But to raise people permanently out of poverty they must be able to provide for their own needs plus generate a surplus for cash.
The second reason it is important that everyone understand and embrace this origination and definition of capitalism is that it is the prudent and balanced way to view things. I don't need to remind people of the current housing market and financial crisis as an example. Again, let's look at the car and gasoline example. Suppose your car breaks down. Do you yell at the gasoline saying "You stupid gasoline! You made me invent the car and now the car doesn't work! It's all your fault!" That is what it is like when ignorant people blame "capitalism" whenever there is a financial problem or shortcoming. It's like blaming gasoline for your even having a car that then gets a flat tire. It's not the gasoline's fault that you need a car or that things break. Likewise it is not capitalism's "fault" when there is a huge scandal, mess, crime or stupid decision making.
I know it is hard to think about capitalism as a family by family "subsistence plus extra for cash" definition because modern society seems to have come so far from that reality. However, it was only forty years ago that this was still being taught in schools and personally experienced by many families in the US. My grandparents, for example, raised their own food to eat and sold the surplus in the farmers' market to obtain cash. So my generation both saw this in practice and heard about it explained in schools. Again, here is my experience. In the summer of 1962 when we were staying with my grandparents, when my mother needed some cash she joined my grandfather and grandmother up the ladder picking cherries which they then took to the farmers' market to sell. Later in school history teachers taught what I put in the previous post about tribes, clans and flock/herd/land owning explaining the transition that all developing people make family by family from "subsistance" to "surplus." Children used to be taught reality and not agenda.
So whenever one gets confused by complicated financial messes of today, it is very helpful to impose whatever you are hearing upon the original measuring stick of capitalism because it helps you to sort through to the essentials very quickly. Here is a quick example, without getting into a lot of detail.
Everyone today has heard the marketing expression "to create a demand" or to "create buzz about a product." Often that is the average person's first "entry" into even thinking about capitalism, and that is unfortunate but inevitable. Original capitalism springs from a recognized human need (the corn example) that prospers enough that the supply crosses the boundary from subsistence to surplus. Thus one family "has" a surplus of what other families "want and can use." The capitalism transaction is a natural outflowing of what people need and want.
In recent decades, however, product is being envisioned and invented whether it is needed and wanted or not, and then peddled to potential buyers. In other words, people are "convinced" that they need a product before the need actually exists. Now, I'm not being all austere and being against luxuries. But I'm helping you think through what is actually capitalism and what is societal quirks and dysfunctions. Any parent out there knows what I am talking about when they think about how marketers constantly "create a need" among their kids. I remember the days before and after "name brands" became de rigeur among kids, such as for expensive sneakers. If you think back to the original model I have explained here of capitalism, you can recognize the difference between the surplus of an "essential commodity" being taken to market (corn, for example) and some product being invented out of an idea factory and then being "marketed" to potential consumers to "create" a need. There is nothing wrong with having a great idea and then convincing lots of people to buy the product except for one thing: society as a whole starts to forget how to distinguish between "essential commodities" and "created products." There then is a cascading series of risks of displaced emphasis and priority with disastrous effects. The diverting of corn from feed to ethanol is a perfect example of this problem. No one thought through the difference between growing a surplus to provide the corn to a new use (ethanol) and cutting into the subsistence use of corn (feeding people and cattle).
This is so essential that I want to make the point a second time. Because I'm sane and a good economist who actually understands humans I made an assumption when I first heard about the push for ethanol development. I assumed that ethanol producers were paying to take farm land that was now idle and putting it to corn growing. In other words, I never dreamed that they were going to extract the corn out of the food and feed subsistence market. To this day I am still boggled that anyone was so irresponsible and stupid as to do that. I assumed that anyone in their right mind was going to first create a surplus of corn in order to put it to this massive scale new usage (ethanol), and not take the corn out of the mouths of humans and animals. So the ethanol disaster is not the fault of "capitalism," it is an example of how people have become totally detached from discerning the reality of distinguishing between subsistence and surplus "supply."
See what I mean? If you always use this model that I have taught you as your baseline of understanding capitalism in general, then you can put yourself on a knowledgeable basis of foundation for discerning opportunities and pitfalls in even complex decisions and transactions. For example, if I had been consulted (ha ha, dream on) when the ethanol idea first came up, I'd have asked "Where will the corn come from?" This is because being real intelligent I know that corn is an essential foodstuff for humans and animals. I would have assumed, I must confess, that the answer would have been the executives whipping out a list of idle farm properties that they would put into production of new corn growing. My jaw would have dropped if I heard them say they were going to "go to the market" for the corn, which means, compete against humans and animals who actually need and eat this product and thus end up making the price of food skyrocket. Then I'd have b-slapped them, so to speak.
The ethanol disaster is an example of how people have 1) forgotten the basic principle of capitalism which is surplus on TOP of subsistence, not biting into subsistence 2) too often created a demand for a product using fallacious lures and assumptions and 3) lack of discernment of all the pros and cons of a given "product" development. I don't want to be cynical but being a realist there is implication number four: these three problems open the door to a small but powerful clique who know full well the disaster they are about to wreck onto people but are in it to pull out the maximum money that they can before "the gig is up." Thus I suspect that some people knew full well that they'd destroy the food prices for the average Joe and Mary but they locked into commodity and other bets to maximize profit when corn prices spiked and did not care at all whether ethanol "succeeded" or not.
I think this capitalism explanation is helpful in getting people on the same page to understanding a lot of the economic problems (and very hidden opportunities) that people are struggling with globally. As always, I hope the young people in particular find this information a truthful beacon and context setting.
Capitalism is what you have when an individual or a family grows enough food to meet their own needs to eat, and also grows an extra amount that it sells for cash. That is the definition and origin of capitalism.
The extra amount of food that is grown is called a "surplus." The fact that it is sold for cash is capitalism. For example, if it was swapped for a different type of food, that is called "bartering" and is not capitalism.
Many people define capitalism as being "the law of supply and demand," but that is not true. Supply and demand is the method by which the family sets and obtains a cash price for their surplus.
For example, cars run on gasoline, but a car was not built because someone was looking for a use for gasoline. Thus supply and demand is like gasoline for a car. It is the method by which the car runs. So supply and demand is the method by which the family prices and then settles on cash for their surplus.
For example, suppose that a family grows corn. They grow enough corn to feed themselves, and some extra that they can sell. One year corn is abundant, so they don't get a very high price for their extra corn. But the next year corn is either scarce due to crop failures or in high demand because of extra usages of corn becoming popular, so the family gets a higher price for their surplus corn than they did the year before. That is an example of supply and demand fluctuating from year to year, and thus an example of "low demand" one year followed by "high demand" the next year.
Here is another example. Suppose a family really likes broccoli. They grow enough to meet their own needs to eat, and also some surplus. But when they go to sell their surplus broccoli they find that no one else has a taste for it like they do. They either cannot sell it or they settle for a low price figuring that even a small amount of cash is gravy since their primary reason to grow the broccoli is their own eating habits. That is an example of supply and demand that illustrates a "low demand" situation.
Farmers invented capitalism. It's not a devious tool of evil western bankers. Capitalism was the natural and healthy outcome of human culture, family by family, raising itself up from subsistence farming (that means farming that yields just enough for the family to be able to eat and not starve) to having surplus that it can sell. Capitalism is as natural as rain. Capitalism has nothing to do with greed and exploitation. Capitalism is grassroots; it sprang up on the family by family boundary between "having just enough to live" to "having something extra to sell." So no one "invented" capitalism and it exists everywhere in all cultural systems. What is invented is the methods of obtaining cash (the demand mechanism), gauging interest in the surplus (the supply mechanism) and the reaching of markets where the deals are struck.
Every family should have this original mindset of capitalism if it wants to be healthy, even though people in developed countries are no longer subsistence farmers. There are several reasons for why this is important. One is that you cannot help impoverished people elsewhere in the world if you do not understand and support this form of capitalism. "Surplus being taken to market" is THE way that people are lifted out of poverty. That is why a "handout" mentality fails. Of course you need to supply emergency and subsistence food, medicine and shelter as stop gap measures. But to raise people permanently out of poverty they must be able to provide for their own needs plus generate a surplus for cash.
The second reason it is important that everyone understand and embrace this origination and definition of capitalism is that it is the prudent and balanced way to view things. I don't need to remind people of the current housing market and financial crisis as an example. Again, let's look at the car and gasoline example. Suppose your car breaks down. Do you yell at the gasoline saying "You stupid gasoline! You made me invent the car and now the car doesn't work! It's all your fault!" That is what it is like when ignorant people blame "capitalism" whenever there is a financial problem or shortcoming. It's like blaming gasoline for your even having a car that then gets a flat tire. It's not the gasoline's fault that you need a car or that things break. Likewise it is not capitalism's "fault" when there is a huge scandal, mess, crime or stupid decision making.
I know it is hard to think about capitalism as a family by family "subsistence plus extra for cash" definition because modern society seems to have come so far from that reality. However, it was only forty years ago that this was still being taught in schools and personally experienced by many families in the US. My grandparents, for example, raised their own food to eat and sold the surplus in the farmers' market to obtain cash. So my generation both saw this in practice and heard about it explained in schools. Again, here is my experience. In the summer of 1962 when we were staying with my grandparents, when my mother needed some cash she joined my grandfather and grandmother up the ladder picking cherries which they then took to the farmers' market to sell. Later in school history teachers taught what I put in the previous post about tribes, clans and flock/herd/land owning explaining the transition that all developing people make family by family from "subsistance" to "surplus." Children used to be taught reality and not agenda.
So whenever one gets confused by complicated financial messes of today, it is very helpful to impose whatever you are hearing upon the original measuring stick of capitalism because it helps you to sort through to the essentials very quickly. Here is a quick example, without getting into a lot of detail.
Everyone today has heard the marketing expression "to create a demand" or to "create buzz about a product." Often that is the average person's first "entry" into even thinking about capitalism, and that is unfortunate but inevitable. Original capitalism springs from a recognized human need (the corn example) that prospers enough that the supply crosses the boundary from subsistence to surplus. Thus one family "has" a surplus of what other families "want and can use." The capitalism transaction is a natural outflowing of what people need and want.
In recent decades, however, product is being envisioned and invented whether it is needed and wanted or not, and then peddled to potential buyers. In other words, people are "convinced" that they need a product before the need actually exists. Now, I'm not being all austere and being against luxuries. But I'm helping you think through what is actually capitalism and what is societal quirks and dysfunctions. Any parent out there knows what I am talking about when they think about how marketers constantly "create a need" among their kids. I remember the days before and after "name brands" became de rigeur among kids, such as for expensive sneakers. If you think back to the original model I have explained here of capitalism, you can recognize the difference between the surplus of an "essential commodity" being taken to market (corn, for example) and some product being invented out of an idea factory and then being "marketed" to potential consumers to "create" a need. There is nothing wrong with having a great idea and then convincing lots of people to buy the product except for one thing: society as a whole starts to forget how to distinguish between "essential commodities" and "created products." There then is a cascading series of risks of displaced emphasis and priority with disastrous effects. The diverting of corn from feed to ethanol is a perfect example of this problem. No one thought through the difference between growing a surplus to provide the corn to a new use (ethanol) and cutting into the subsistence use of corn (feeding people and cattle).
This is so essential that I want to make the point a second time. Because I'm sane and a good economist who actually understands humans I made an assumption when I first heard about the push for ethanol development. I assumed that ethanol producers were paying to take farm land that was now idle and putting it to corn growing. In other words, I never dreamed that they were going to extract the corn out of the food and feed subsistence market. To this day I am still boggled that anyone was so irresponsible and stupid as to do that. I assumed that anyone in their right mind was going to first create a surplus of corn in order to put it to this massive scale new usage (ethanol), and not take the corn out of the mouths of humans and animals. So the ethanol disaster is not the fault of "capitalism," it is an example of how people have become totally detached from discerning the reality of distinguishing between subsistence and surplus "supply."
See what I mean? If you always use this model that I have taught you as your baseline of understanding capitalism in general, then you can put yourself on a knowledgeable basis of foundation for discerning opportunities and pitfalls in even complex decisions and transactions. For example, if I had been consulted (ha ha, dream on) when the ethanol idea first came up, I'd have asked "Where will the corn come from?" This is because being real intelligent I know that corn is an essential foodstuff for humans and animals. I would have assumed, I must confess, that the answer would have been the executives whipping out a list of idle farm properties that they would put into production of new corn growing. My jaw would have dropped if I heard them say they were going to "go to the market" for the corn, which means, compete against humans and animals who actually need and eat this product and thus end up making the price of food skyrocket. Then I'd have b-slapped them, so to speak.
The ethanol disaster is an example of how people have 1) forgotten the basic principle of capitalism which is surplus on TOP of subsistence, not biting into subsistence 2) too often created a demand for a product using fallacious lures and assumptions and 3) lack of discernment of all the pros and cons of a given "product" development. I don't want to be cynical but being a realist there is implication number four: these three problems open the door to a small but powerful clique who know full well the disaster they are about to wreck onto people but are in it to pull out the maximum money that they can before "the gig is up." Thus I suspect that some people knew full well that they'd destroy the food prices for the average Joe and Mary but they locked into commodity and other bets to maximize profit when corn prices spiked and did not care at all whether ethanol "succeeded" or not.
I think this capitalism explanation is helpful in getting people on the same page to understanding a lot of the economic problems (and very hidden opportunities) that people are struggling with globally. As always, I hope the young people in particular find this information a truthful beacon and context setting.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Quick history lesson for young people
Again, what I am going to teach here is material that used to be taught in schools, but has been censored, oppressed, warped and by now forgotten due to anti-religious zealotry and revisionist viewing of human history (where history is viewed in overly sentimentalized and almost "TV episode" fashion). So out of special concern for young people, here is an important lesson about human history.
Humans evolved out of hundreds of thousands of years of sheer survival. So just like the animals, for most of humanity's existence they were individuals who bonded for mating, producing offspring, and who lived hand to mouth as gatherers and/or hunters.
The first communities were therefore extended families. The most fundamental unit of human existence is the individual who pairs with a member of the opposite sex, has children, and those children eventually grow up and marry. Thus extended families (siblings, parents, children and offspring) became larger in proportion to the ability of the people to support themselves on the land. This is why many "conservatives" patiently explain to modern youth that the family is the basic unit of humanity. No one would be alive today if male did not mate with female and produced offspring, who then lived within an extended family that pulled together in order to hunt or gather enough food for all to survive.
My second point, beside the one about the traditional family being humanity's factual basic unit of humanity's continuation and flourishing, is that this is why in many areas of the world there is extreme zealotry regarding tribal affiliation and clans. This is the result of social evolution, where as families grew larger and larger "becoming super-extended families," they began to self identify as a clan or a tribe.
So this is why you see such an eruption of violence based on tribal, clan or "ethnic" identities in the world today, even in these "modern" times. Tribes and clans have been for thousands of years of human history the basic communal survival unit. Clans and tribes who stuck together and who had strong identities tended to be successful, enabling more children to be born and raised and more prosperous (in terms of survival) communities to be established.
At first these communities, based on extended family, clan and tribe, were "virtual" communities and not real. I'm using computer terms to help modern youth better understand what I mean. These communities were not settled into houses and neighborhoods. They were nomads because people still lived hand to mouth, hunting and gathering wherever they could find food and reliable sources of water. So that is the third point that I want to explain to you, that the integrity of early extended families, clans and tribes were "portable." In other words, the glue among the families and tribes was stronger than anything else since it was not based on a location. In other words, people lived the opposite of what they do today, where families (such as they are) disperse as kids go to college or move for their first jobs, and even the basic family unit is scattered across states and even countries. For most of human history the extended family was mobile, sticking together and growing in size as they found locations where they could find reliable food, water and shelter from the elements.
Eventually humans learned how to domesticate animals and so flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of oxen and cattle accompanied the extended families and tribes. It is at this stage in human history that salvation history is first documented. Now when you read in the Bible about the patriarch Abraham and his descendants you can understand the human history and social context that you are reading. Abraham headed a huge extended migratory (mobile and nomadic) human family. Abraham became "prosperous" and blessed because he grew the size of the herds so that his children and the extended clan could live and thrive. For example, while liberals like to talk about "human breast milk is best" and "tsk tsk" women who bottle feed using cow milk (and worry about excessive "meat" and "milk" use, even obsessing about cow farts), there was little choice back then, for yes, while women breast fed, they also were pregnant very often and often ran dry. Women who had their first birth often could not produce milk if they themselves were malnourished or sickly. Thus the importance if one reads throughout history of human "wet nurses" (a woman who did have milk to nurse the baby of a woman who could not produce milk). But when humans were still living a subsistence life, there was not an abundance of wet nurses since all humans were under the strain of simply finding enough calories to survive. Humans literally would not be alive today if it was not for cow's milk. So it is not just the meat of domesticated animals that was important, but the dairy products that was singularly responsible for many children having fluids and milk that allowed them to live.
That, then, is my next point. This is why the constant motif throughout the monotheist one true God faith books, the Old Testament, the New Testament, is of "flocks." A man's wealth and blessings was measured in his flocks because it was through a growing and healthy flock that a man could support his growing and healthy family. Eventually the ability to grow a flock that could support one's family became the measure of a man's authority and governance for that obvious reason. So as early extended families slowly evolved into communities the "decision makers" were the men upon whose shoulders the survival of the entire family relied. It was not being "mean" or "sexist" or "exclusionary." Men who were patriarchs of the family earned that position not because of biology but because they grew their families by providing for them and others became eager to marry their children into extended families and clans that could provide food, water and shelter.
You can read in the Old Testament about how the tribes of Israel formed as extended families branched where each new branch or "tribe" is headed by a son who could provide for his own extended family. So extended families that were successful "sprouted" new extended families that in some cases became independent tribal identities. You can see in both Biblical history and in recorded human secular history that tribes become rivals when there is a friction for controlling enough resources so that the tribe can grow and thrive. So there are two points to note. One is that tribes sprang up from an ancestral successful extended family that splits. The other is that scarcity of resources can make tribes that sprang from the same family become hostile and competitors if they feel they must contend over food, water, land and other resources that are needed for survival. Thus you must understand that it is not humans being "evil" or "mean" when there are wars and strife between tribes, although that is often the outcome, but that tribal allegiance and strife are human survival instincts that are easily triggered. Thus you see mindless slaughter in places like Kenya in the past year between tribes, for example. Tribal allegiance and hostility, while not admirable, are human evolved survival traits.
Eventually humans settled down in locations where they could be certain of year around food, water and shelter materials. This happened in different locales at different times but the great prototype cities evolved in the fertile areas of Egypt, India, and the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Iraq and vicinity). So remember, humans have thousands of years of extended family, clan and tribal affiliation before they have a "land based" affiliation.
Logically, the same values that evolved from necessity (the patriarch who could provide flocks to support his extended family) became transferred to settled life (the patriarch who had land to grow crops, graze his herds and create trades and crafts needed for income and survival) became the "decision makers" in the community. Again, this was logical and desirable and not "oppression." The man who could provide food and shelter for his large extended family became the sought out and desired "in law" for other families who eagerly sought life and security for their children within the patriarch's family. Decisions that affected the community as a whole were made by these men who provided for large established and growing families. I know that revisionists like to disparage our ancestors by calling them "old men elders who controlled everything," but that is totally wrong. Elders conveyed knowledge and wisdom about how to live, but the strong patriarch who had providing for his family as his daily reality was the one who made decisions out of necessity, not a "power grab" or to keep others subservient. By the way, the time of the Qur'an documents that intersection between the nomadic times and the time of settling down in established towns. Thus many of the teachings of the Prophet (PBUH) regards the extending of largess and alms (charity) by the patriarchs toward those in need, within settlements.
I don't want to do a huge post on social and human history so let me leap forward to the past several hundred years to make my final and important point on this topic.
All that I describe here is the reason why when the United States was founded, over two hundred years ago, political power was vested in the hands of land owning men. This was true all around the world in all cultures. It's not like mean people got together and coordinated somehow an evil plot to keep the "poor" and "women" "down" while they grabbed power. As recently as several hundred years ago it was reality, simple reality, that decisions had to be made by men who owned the land that provided a living (even if it was meagre) for their extended families and also for the communities that depended upon them. Humans correctly evolved a social system whereby patriarchs who grew flocks and later land holdings and associated agriculture and later industrial activities had an extra burden of responsibility to make relevant decisions. This is why England has what seems like a laughable system of "the House of Lords" where just having the title of Lord gives someone a seat in their equivalent of the Senate. Just because most of them are silly and stupid idle idiots now does not mean that the system was wrong in the first place. It was the logical structure where adult men who owned land and accumulated wealth made decisions where they had to be made. It is the genius of the United States Founding Fathers that they envisioned such a "land based" responsibility as a democratic republic where senators and representatives were selected based on the collective states' "land" rather than personal holdings.
You can see why I am so annoyed by modern ignorant people who snipe at the Founding Fathers, making them out to be some sort of oppressors because of the white male land owning structure that existed in that time. That was reality, sugar pies, not oppression. In the 1700's humans were still, on the most part, at a stage of development where land holding white males (or land holding Chinese males, if you go to the other side of the world) had to bear the responsibility of feeding their families and providing for the extended community. Until only one hundred years ago virtually eighty to ninety percent of the human population was farmers, involved full time in agriculture. Thus the world spun around land holding men who had responsibility to provide food for their families and additional food to community dependents. Governance, whether in Europe or the United States, all sprang from that reality. If you need a case study look at the torture of Zimbabwe. There is continual economic destruction and chaos because of the abrupt severing of the land owning white male farmers to redistribution of land without the accompanying assuming of responsibility based on stability and know how. Patriarchs used to pass on the knowledge to their sons and daughter in like an apprentice fashion. When you have abrupt social churning and re-engineering that period of apprenticeship and transition is totally lost. Anyway, I mention this example not to make a racial point, because the story would be the same no matter what the skin color of the dominant land owning social segment and the underclass. (Look at India if you need an example of that). My point is that humans evolved a system of first "flock and herd holding" and then "land holding" patriarchs who had survival responsibility for their families, clans, tribes and later communities that was based on efficiency, reality and prosperity and thriving success.
Everywhere that humans spread as their populations grew they brought the same model of success with them and indeed the same model sprang up all over the world among separate civilizations. Tribes and clans formed based on the prosperity of "patriarchs" who succeeded in best providing for their growing extended families in a world that was strictly one hundred percent agricultural, except where gathering continued to be successful, such as coastal fishing based societies. But the vast majority of human success until the Age of Industrialization (the mid 1800's) was based on farming, farming, farming. Thus the patriarch land holder (and the resources on that land) were the logical and defacto decision makers. You can see examples of this in oldies "Western" films where "cattle barons" feuded with "sheep farmers." These are "tribes" feuding over resources to feed their families and become prosperous. The "cattle barons" held a lot of power and that is to be expected so long as the society was entirely agriculture and pastoral based. Cattle barons were not getting together to make decisions (bad or good) as a way to spite women or people of other races. Reality for the vast majority of human history and indeed the primary survival trait of humans is that a strong family holds close together in order to cultivate the land and develop food for subsistence and "surplus." With subsistence you feed your family, with surplus you sell the extra to prosper (and store surplus against famine or other disaster). In fact, capitalism springs from that very concept, but that's another subject.
My point, in summary, is that humans evolved social structures because they were necessary and worked (and were in fact key survival traits), and not because they were "exclusionary" or "power grabbing." These social structures are the traditional family, the extended family, clan or tribal identity (patriotism), and the role and responsibility of the "provider." For thousands of years humans grew in their numbers and prosperity, and their stability in the sense that a famine, for example, need not wipe out entire segments of humanity. Unfairness and injustice have always existed among humans, but the important point is that it's not like humans ran around looking for ways to be unfair and unjust. Unfairness and injustice is a human flaw, but that does not mean that the systems that worked (traditional families, patriarchs, responsible land owners, the role of "providers") are in error or evil. In fact, the opposite is true. When the extended family is the primary concern, that is actually an antidote against greed and oppression. When single consumerists rule you have a serious problem in societal breakdown and skewing of priorities. For example, many "wealthy landowners" of several centuries ago endowed schools and hospitals because of their family values; it would never have occurred to them to pour their money into personal "recreation." Today there are still generous individuals, but many donate money to causes far from home and do not invest in their community, and many do so for individualistic reasons, rather than "patriarchal" or even "matriarchal" reasons. Again, that's a rant for another time and place, but I think you see my point. I am so tired of hearing certain people trash the Founding Fathers and their brilliance, and impugn bad motives to generations of good people who had basically two choices on the menu: farm or starve. It's only this recent incredibly alienated "modern" generation that cannot even comprehend what and why their ancestors did what they did, and what they tried to pass on to their descendants.
I hope you find this helpful and remember, I'm just pointing you in the right direction to how to understand history, both secular and sacred, in the context of reality, and that knowing this you can do a lot of reading and research with really new and clearer eyes. No one can claim to be a diplomat, a pacifist, or a "peace maker" if you do not even understand how humans evolved and why they do the things that they do, what worked and what did not work, and the foundations of human stability and success.
Humans evolved out of hundreds of thousands of years of sheer survival. So just like the animals, for most of humanity's existence they were individuals who bonded for mating, producing offspring, and who lived hand to mouth as gatherers and/or hunters.
The first communities were therefore extended families. The most fundamental unit of human existence is the individual who pairs with a member of the opposite sex, has children, and those children eventually grow up and marry. Thus extended families (siblings, parents, children and offspring) became larger in proportion to the ability of the people to support themselves on the land. This is why many "conservatives" patiently explain to modern youth that the family is the basic unit of humanity. No one would be alive today if male did not mate with female and produced offspring, who then lived within an extended family that pulled together in order to hunt or gather enough food for all to survive.
My second point, beside the one about the traditional family being humanity's factual basic unit of humanity's continuation and flourishing, is that this is why in many areas of the world there is extreme zealotry regarding tribal affiliation and clans. This is the result of social evolution, where as families grew larger and larger "becoming super-extended families," they began to self identify as a clan or a tribe.
So this is why you see such an eruption of violence based on tribal, clan or "ethnic" identities in the world today, even in these "modern" times. Tribes and clans have been for thousands of years of human history the basic communal survival unit. Clans and tribes who stuck together and who had strong identities tended to be successful, enabling more children to be born and raised and more prosperous (in terms of survival) communities to be established.
At first these communities, based on extended family, clan and tribe, were "virtual" communities and not real. I'm using computer terms to help modern youth better understand what I mean. These communities were not settled into houses and neighborhoods. They were nomads because people still lived hand to mouth, hunting and gathering wherever they could find food and reliable sources of water. So that is the third point that I want to explain to you, that the integrity of early extended families, clans and tribes were "portable." In other words, the glue among the families and tribes was stronger than anything else since it was not based on a location. In other words, people lived the opposite of what they do today, where families (such as they are) disperse as kids go to college or move for their first jobs, and even the basic family unit is scattered across states and even countries. For most of human history the extended family was mobile, sticking together and growing in size as they found locations where they could find reliable food, water and shelter from the elements.
Eventually humans learned how to domesticate animals and so flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of oxen and cattle accompanied the extended families and tribes. It is at this stage in human history that salvation history is first documented. Now when you read in the Bible about the patriarch Abraham and his descendants you can understand the human history and social context that you are reading. Abraham headed a huge extended migratory (mobile and nomadic) human family. Abraham became "prosperous" and blessed because he grew the size of the herds so that his children and the extended clan could live and thrive. For example, while liberals like to talk about "human breast milk is best" and "tsk tsk" women who bottle feed using cow milk (and worry about excessive "meat" and "milk" use, even obsessing about cow farts), there was little choice back then, for yes, while women breast fed, they also were pregnant very often and often ran dry. Women who had their first birth often could not produce milk if they themselves were malnourished or sickly. Thus the importance if one reads throughout history of human "wet nurses" (a woman who did have milk to nurse the baby of a woman who could not produce milk). But when humans were still living a subsistence life, there was not an abundance of wet nurses since all humans were under the strain of simply finding enough calories to survive. Humans literally would not be alive today if it was not for cow's milk. So it is not just the meat of domesticated animals that was important, but the dairy products that was singularly responsible for many children having fluids and milk that allowed them to live.
That, then, is my next point. This is why the constant motif throughout the monotheist one true God faith books, the Old Testament, the New Testament, is of "flocks." A man's wealth and blessings was measured in his flocks because it was through a growing and healthy flock that a man could support his growing and healthy family. Eventually the ability to grow a flock that could support one's family became the measure of a man's authority and governance for that obvious reason. So as early extended families slowly evolved into communities the "decision makers" were the men upon whose shoulders the survival of the entire family relied. It was not being "mean" or "sexist" or "exclusionary." Men who were patriarchs of the family earned that position not because of biology but because they grew their families by providing for them and others became eager to marry their children into extended families and clans that could provide food, water and shelter.
You can read in the Old Testament about how the tribes of Israel formed as extended families branched where each new branch or "tribe" is headed by a son who could provide for his own extended family. So extended families that were successful "sprouted" new extended families that in some cases became independent tribal identities. You can see in both Biblical history and in recorded human secular history that tribes become rivals when there is a friction for controlling enough resources so that the tribe can grow and thrive. So there are two points to note. One is that tribes sprang up from an ancestral successful extended family that splits. The other is that scarcity of resources can make tribes that sprang from the same family become hostile and competitors if they feel they must contend over food, water, land and other resources that are needed for survival. Thus you must understand that it is not humans being "evil" or "mean" when there are wars and strife between tribes, although that is often the outcome, but that tribal allegiance and strife are human survival instincts that are easily triggered. Thus you see mindless slaughter in places like Kenya in the past year between tribes, for example. Tribal allegiance and hostility, while not admirable, are human evolved survival traits.
Eventually humans settled down in locations where they could be certain of year around food, water and shelter materials. This happened in different locales at different times but the great prototype cities evolved in the fertile areas of Egypt, India, and the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Iraq and vicinity). So remember, humans have thousands of years of extended family, clan and tribal affiliation before they have a "land based" affiliation.
Logically, the same values that evolved from necessity (the patriarch who could provide flocks to support his extended family) became transferred to settled life (the patriarch who had land to grow crops, graze his herds and create trades and crafts needed for income and survival) became the "decision makers" in the community. Again, this was logical and desirable and not "oppression." The man who could provide food and shelter for his large extended family became the sought out and desired "in law" for other families who eagerly sought life and security for their children within the patriarch's family. Decisions that affected the community as a whole were made by these men who provided for large established and growing families. I know that revisionists like to disparage our ancestors by calling them "old men elders who controlled everything," but that is totally wrong. Elders conveyed knowledge and wisdom about how to live, but the strong patriarch who had providing for his family as his daily reality was the one who made decisions out of necessity, not a "power grab" or to keep others subservient. By the way, the time of the Qur'an documents that intersection between the nomadic times and the time of settling down in established towns. Thus many of the teachings of the Prophet (PBUH) regards the extending of largess and alms (charity) by the patriarchs toward those in need, within settlements.
I don't want to do a huge post on social and human history so let me leap forward to the past several hundred years to make my final and important point on this topic.
All that I describe here is the reason why when the United States was founded, over two hundred years ago, political power was vested in the hands of land owning men. This was true all around the world in all cultures. It's not like mean people got together and coordinated somehow an evil plot to keep the "poor" and "women" "down" while they grabbed power. As recently as several hundred years ago it was reality, simple reality, that decisions had to be made by men who owned the land that provided a living (even if it was meagre) for their extended families and also for the communities that depended upon them. Humans correctly evolved a social system whereby patriarchs who grew flocks and later land holdings and associated agriculture and later industrial activities had an extra burden of responsibility to make relevant decisions. This is why England has what seems like a laughable system of "the House of Lords" where just having the title of Lord gives someone a seat in their equivalent of the Senate. Just because most of them are silly and stupid idle idiots now does not mean that the system was wrong in the first place. It was the logical structure where adult men who owned land and accumulated wealth made decisions where they had to be made. It is the genius of the United States Founding Fathers that they envisioned such a "land based" responsibility as a democratic republic where senators and representatives were selected based on the collective states' "land" rather than personal holdings.
You can see why I am so annoyed by modern ignorant people who snipe at the Founding Fathers, making them out to be some sort of oppressors because of the white male land owning structure that existed in that time. That was reality, sugar pies, not oppression. In the 1700's humans were still, on the most part, at a stage of development where land holding white males (or land holding Chinese males, if you go to the other side of the world) had to bear the responsibility of feeding their families and providing for the extended community. Until only one hundred years ago virtually eighty to ninety percent of the human population was farmers, involved full time in agriculture. Thus the world spun around land holding men who had responsibility to provide food for their families and additional food to community dependents. Governance, whether in Europe or the United States, all sprang from that reality. If you need a case study look at the torture of Zimbabwe. There is continual economic destruction and chaos because of the abrupt severing of the land owning white male farmers to redistribution of land without the accompanying assuming of responsibility based on stability and know how. Patriarchs used to pass on the knowledge to their sons and daughter in like an apprentice fashion. When you have abrupt social churning and re-engineering that period of apprenticeship and transition is totally lost. Anyway, I mention this example not to make a racial point, because the story would be the same no matter what the skin color of the dominant land owning social segment and the underclass. (Look at India if you need an example of that). My point is that humans evolved a system of first "flock and herd holding" and then "land holding" patriarchs who had survival responsibility for their families, clans, tribes and later communities that was based on efficiency, reality and prosperity and thriving success.
Everywhere that humans spread as their populations grew they brought the same model of success with them and indeed the same model sprang up all over the world among separate civilizations. Tribes and clans formed based on the prosperity of "patriarchs" who succeeded in best providing for their growing extended families in a world that was strictly one hundred percent agricultural, except where gathering continued to be successful, such as coastal fishing based societies. But the vast majority of human success until the Age of Industrialization (the mid 1800's) was based on farming, farming, farming. Thus the patriarch land holder (and the resources on that land) were the logical and defacto decision makers. You can see examples of this in oldies "Western" films where "cattle barons" feuded with "sheep farmers." These are "tribes" feuding over resources to feed their families and become prosperous. The "cattle barons" held a lot of power and that is to be expected so long as the society was entirely agriculture and pastoral based. Cattle barons were not getting together to make decisions (bad or good) as a way to spite women or people of other races. Reality for the vast majority of human history and indeed the primary survival trait of humans is that a strong family holds close together in order to cultivate the land and develop food for subsistence and "surplus." With subsistence you feed your family, with surplus you sell the extra to prosper (and store surplus against famine or other disaster). In fact, capitalism springs from that very concept, but that's another subject.
My point, in summary, is that humans evolved social structures because they were necessary and worked (and were in fact key survival traits), and not because they were "exclusionary" or "power grabbing." These social structures are the traditional family, the extended family, clan or tribal identity (patriotism), and the role and responsibility of the "provider." For thousands of years humans grew in their numbers and prosperity, and their stability in the sense that a famine, for example, need not wipe out entire segments of humanity. Unfairness and injustice have always existed among humans, but the important point is that it's not like humans ran around looking for ways to be unfair and unjust. Unfairness and injustice is a human flaw, but that does not mean that the systems that worked (traditional families, patriarchs, responsible land owners, the role of "providers") are in error or evil. In fact, the opposite is true. When the extended family is the primary concern, that is actually an antidote against greed and oppression. When single consumerists rule you have a serious problem in societal breakdown and skewing of priorities. For example, many "wealthy landowners" of several centuries ago endowed schools and hospitals because of their family values; it would never have occurred to them to pour their money into personal "recreation." Today there are still generous individuals, but many donate money to causes far from home and do not invest in their community, and many do so for individualistic reasons, rather than "patriarchal" or even "matriarchal" reasons. Again, that's a rant for another time and place, but I think you see my point. I am so tired of hearing certain people trash the Founding Fathers and their brilliance, and impugn bad motives to generations of good people who had basically two choices on the menu: farm or starve. It's only this recent incredibly alienated "modern" generation that cannot even comprehend what and why their ancestors did what they did, and what they tried to pass on to their descendants.
I hope you find this helpful and remember, I'm just pointing you in the right direction to how to understand history, both secular and sacred, in the context of reality, and that knowing this you can do a lot of reading and research with really new and clearer eyes. No one can claim to be a diplomat, a pacifist, or a "peace maker" if you do not even understand how humans evolved and why they do the things that they do, what worked and what did not work, and the foundations of human stability and success.
Bible Reading: Exodus 34:27-35
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with them I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." So Moses stayed there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights, without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, he did not known that the skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord. When Aaron, then, and the other Israelites saw Moses and noticed how radiant the skin of his face had become, they were afraid to come near him. Only after Moses called to them did Aaron and all the rulers of the community come back to him. Moses then spoke to them. Later on, all the Israelites came up to him, and he enjoined on them all that the Lord had told him on Mount Sinai. When he finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses entered the presence of the Lord to converse with him, he removed the veil until he came out again. On coming out, he would tell the Israelites all that had been commanded. Then the Israelites would see that the skin of Moses' face was radiant; so he would again put the veil over his face until he went in to converse with the Lord.
As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, he did not known that the skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord. When Aaron, then, and the other Israelites saw Moses and noticed how radiant the skin of his face had become, they were afraid to come near him. Only after Moses called to them did Aaron and all the rulers of the community come back to him. Moses then spoke to them. Later on, all the Israelites came up to him, and he enjoined on them all that the Lord had told him on Mount Sinai. When he finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses entered the presence of the Lord to converse with him, he removed the veil until he came out again. On coming out, he would tell the Israelites all that had been commanded. Then the Israelites would see that the skin of Moses' face was radiant; so he would again put the veil over his face until he went in to converse with the Lord.
Bible Reading: Exodus 34:1-11
The Lord said to Moses, "Cut two stone tablets like the former, that I may write on them the commandments which were on the former tablets that you broke. Get ready for tomorrow morning, when you are to go up Mount Sinai and there present yourself to me on top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and no one is even to be seen on any part of the mountain; even the flocks and the herds are not to go grazing toward this mountain." Moses then cut two stone tablets like the former, and early the next morning he went up Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets.
Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with him there and proclaimed his name, "Lord." Thus the Lord passed before him and cried out, "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness!" Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own."
"Here, then," said the Lord, "is the covenant I will make. Before the eyes of all your people I will work such marvels as have never been wrought in any nation anywhere on earth, so that this people among whom you live may see how awe-inspiring are the deeds which I, the Lord, will do at your side. But you, on your part, must keep the commandments I am giving you today."
Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with him there and proclaimed his name, "Lord." Thus the Lord passed before him and cried out, "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness!" Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own."
"Here, then," said the Lord, "is the covenant I will make. Before the eyes of all your people I will work such marvels as have never been wrought in any nation anywhere on earth, so that this people among whom you live may see how awe-inspiring are the deeds which I, the Lord, will do at your side. But you, on your part, must keep the commandments I am giving you today."
Hindus continue Christian killing
And also, as I've pointed out, their "real" agenda, which is not spiritual, but to continue to oppress the "untouchables." So, not surprisingly, they are busy burning down the poor homes that the "untouchables" (India's bottom rung "class" of people) live in, while killing Christians, who minister to the untouchables. The latest Christian victims are two Baptists, executed by a mob at gunpoint.
http://www.indiancatholic.in/report.asp?nid=11475
http://www.indiancatholic.in/report.asp?nid=11475
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