Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas

["Charles Knouse" charles@xxxxxxxx]

Ah, yes, I do remember reading about fighting between aboriginal tribes in
Australia, and also about how crews of ships wrecked against the western
coast during the days of the Dutch East India trading company were often
killed by the aboriginals, and I do believe were cannabalized.

Bottom line: all humans carry the capacity for savage brutality, and most
tribes, including our modern corporations, unless firmly directed by humans
of great conscience, commit atrocities routinely and shamelessly, due to our
interesting ability to see people outside our tribe as non-human.

Corporations committing atrocities? One example comes to my mind: the recent
victory in Europe of the pharmaceutical companies in getting vitamins and
supplements regulated, meaning that now access in Europe is limited, prices
will go through the roof, the profits will go to the drug companies there,
and the smaller companies who were serving the public out of zealous belief
in vitamins and supplements (sometimes too zealous, I admit) will be forced
out of business. It should come as no surprise to any student of human
nature that these same drug companies are the ones that got their start
making poison gas for Hitler's concentration camps, and many of the
executives are the sons of the men who originally profiteered from the
deaths of the Jews, Gypsies and Poles.

Charles

----- Original Message -----
From: "phillipalder" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas


> Re the piece about Indian tribes fighting, were the Aborigines of
Australia
> unfriendly toward each other? I cannot remember reading that. Also, they
do
> controlled burns in the outback for the regrowth reason given below.
>
> By the way, if you are interesting about cattle ranching in the outback
> early in the last century, get hold of "We of the Never Never". Sorry, my
> aged brain cannot remember the name of the author, and I lent my copy to
> someone who -- surprise, surprise -- never returned it.
>
> Phillip Alder
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: mike shupp 
> To: 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 2:47 PM
> Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas
>
>
> > I've a stock response when someone suggests that the Los Angeles area
> > would benefit from using past Indian "wisdom" to manage the local
> > environment: "Oh goody! We're going to set fire to Orange County
> > every other year!"
> >
> > (For the curious-- Range fires tend to burn off smaller twigs and
> > branches on shrubs, but leave them alive, so the following spring
> > you get a lot of new buds and young green branches. These tend to
> > be high in sugar-rich sap, which attracts deer and other browsing
> > animals, which simplifies hunting deer... So every so often local
> > Indians did set fire to the flat lands in the LA area. And then of
> > course, thermal inversions trapped the smoke in the LA basin,
> > creating smog centuries before cars were invented.)
> >
> >
> >
> > ----Original Message Follows----
> > From: George Scithers 
> > Reply-To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
> > To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas
> > Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 21:49:21 -0400
> >
> > It would be satisfying to refute the goody-goody image of the
> > environmentally sensitive Amerindians . . .
> >
> > George Scithers of owlswickpress@xxxxxxxx
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: 
> > To: 
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 9:22 PM
> > Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas
> >
> >
> > > Not there, yet, but some in other places. The big issue is whether
the
> > > decline of these big creatures was affected by human hunting. It's a
> hot
> > one,
> > > no where near settled.
> > > Phil
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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