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We–the 99%–require a new consciousness of precisely who and what we face . . . and to face the need for resistance to the ruling World Order for the very survival of humanity and the planet.
But first, we need to clearly define who the 1% are. They are not simply Wall Street or the wealthy elite. (Some of whom are just as concerned with humanity and the planet as we are.)
Hyperbole? Consider…
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While I’ve published over 430 Indexed experiential and political articles on this site, occasionally I also publish short-story fiction that I believe some will find of interest . . . and sometimes fiction rivals the truth. This is one of those stories. As a veteran of the 101st Airborne (1959-61) and founder of the Detroit Veterans against the War (’67), I’m proud to consider myself a Winter Warrior, not a Sunshine Patriot…
The two ‘troopers of the 101st Airborne were both 19-yrs-old, recently assigned to Vietnam, 1969. Their area of operations, the A Shau Valley in the center of the nation, was a notorious bastion of Vietnamese resistance. Every newbie learned boocoo-didimau the all-too-real story of the area–not the media mythology hyped back stateside to the American public.
The Special Forces camp was overrun in ’66. The US subsequently learned in later battles there—and throughout Vietnam, for that matter–that the only land they were ever victorious over was the land they physically occupied . . . and then only for the time they occupied it.
Part of this reality was the result of Vietnamese Resistance forces fading into the countryside when major US forces deployed into an area. Subsequently, American frustration was often taken out on the remaining villagers and farmers . . . often, older women and children.
Dido and Christopher were on patrol searching for contact w/the enemy. Intel had all-but-assured them that there was no organized force in the area, but they did surprise a small family working a field. It turned out that their village had been totally destroyed in earlier B-52 carpet bombing. They were all that was left.
The A Shau Valley…
The American patrol was a small force of 14 men backed up by a South Vietnamese Army group of 10 more. Initially, several children ran off into the brush at the approach of the patrol. Several of the men, including Dido and Chris, were paired off to pursue and capture them.
Dido was never a happy ‘trooper. Wary of an ambush, he was cursing the LT a blue streak under his breath as they moved out. Chris ignored him. He was satisfied to not be a witness to the SVA “questioning” the women for information on their younger men and women who were no doubt Viet Cong irregulars off somewhere.
The men knew that the war was a lost cause. Nixon had been elected and the military was waiting for him to reveal his “secret plan” to wind down the conflict. No one wanted to be the last killed on a lost battlefield.
After moving further into the nearby forest and beating the bush, Chris heard a piercing scream and then muffled cries. Returning to Dido, he found his partner standing over a naked, bloodied young girl with his foot on her chest. She was gasping for air. Dido was pulling up his pants. Chris froze. Dido laughed and said, “No use letting it go to waste. Want sloppy seconds?”
Christopher said nothing. Dido shrugged and reaching down, he pulled a knife from his boot and slit her throat all in one fluid motion. Chris leveled his weapon and emptied his clip into Dido.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall…
When they found Dido’s body he became one of the 58,272 KIA on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. A similar wall in Vietnam would have to contain up to three-million names . . . mostly civilians. Christopher was listed as MIA. They never found his body…
Jackie Ladino studied the photos of a tooth, fragment of jaw, and the forensic report that arrived from the Army’s lab in Hawaii. She knew that the likelihood of recovering more was practically nil.
The young woman next to her, Laura Strachan, also looked at the report, “Yes, this is the same one my mother received, minus the details regarding the source of its recovery. It says here that the remains were found by a ‘mushroom hunter’ in the A Shau Valley? Where’s that?”
“It’s up in the Central Highlands, in the north of South Vietnam. That’s where your grandfather was stationed during his tour,” said Jackie. “Your mother was unable to come?”
“Mom is bedridden . . . cancer. I’ve heard about Grandpa Chris all my life and promised her that I’d do everything I can to track down his final days and maybe even whatever remains there are for a decent funeral. He never had one. There wasn’t even a memorial,” Laura replied.
“I see here that he was only 19 when he went MIA. Your mother is his daughter?”
“Yes, she was born after he disappeared,” said Laura. “He and Grandma Phyllis were engaged and he never even knew that she was pregnant. She died young. Mom said it was from a broken heart. I think some answers, some closure, would help–.”
“Well, I can’t give you any guarantees, but our mission here in Vietnam has been quite successful and the Vietnamese have been remarkably cooperative,” said Jackie.
Ho Chi Minh City today…
Jackie Ladino filed the necessary paperwork w/the local gov’t office in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon to the French and later the American forces. With the official document, the Vietnamese gave both Jackie and Laura a military flight to the airbase at Hue, formerly the Imperial Capital of the Nguyen Dynasty back in the 1800s, the site of devastation by American forces after the Tet Offensive in ’68, and today a major tourist center.
The women were put up overnight in a local hotel and picked up early the next morning by an army vehicle with a driver and an officer as an interpreter-guide. The army personnel were delighted to get away from the mundane of their regular duties and take the two young American women to the listed MIA site.
When Captain Nguyen Ai Quoc introduced himself, Jackie studied him for a moment and remarked, “Really? Ho Chi Minh?”
Captain Quoc replied, “I’m impressed. You’re the first American I’ve ever met who knows one of the original names of our former president. My father was a well-decorated patriot of the resistance. He named me after the founder of our Republic.”
That set the stage for a pleasant drive to the A Shau Valley. Laura found it hard to reconcile what she knew and believed of Vietnam, and enjoyed engaging the captain in questions, of which he was delighted to give her answers. Having brought her camera, she was free to take all the pictures she wanted . . . and did.
As they cut off the main highway and traveled along progressively less-developed roads, the captain explained that they had already surveyed the forested area where the few remains were found. “There’s not really all that much there, but we did find some sort of personal shrine, so it means something to someone. We traced some of the material at the shrine as coming from a village not that far away. I suggest we go to the village first,” suggested the captain, “and, later we can visit the area where your relative was apparently last known to be, okay?”
The women readily agreed. It was close to noon when the vehicle came upon the village carved out of the thick forested area on the fringe of the A Shau Valley. They were enthusiastically greeted by jumping children and barking dogs. When they saw the obviously foreign women, they grew even more openly curious.
Waiting patiently in the vehicle, parked off-trail near a strange looking tree, they were soon greeted by several elders apparently led by an old woman, the senior elder of the village. After a brief talk w/the captain, they were all invited to sit at some comfortable twine-woven benches under the tree.
Given some sweetmeats, fruit and tea, it was soon made clear by the captain translating comments by the elder woman that they were waiting for the arrival of her son, the village leader, from the fields where he had been sent for.
Jackie and Laura were admiring the area. The tree was quite large and provided ample shade from the sun. Fruits were hanging from its branches, which seemed strange to the women as they were a variety of different types. Laura was about to ask about this when a small group of men arrived.
The elderly man talked with the captain for a few minutes as he studied the women. He was eventually introduced as Le Kim Chu, the son of the elderly woman. After a few minutes of polite chatter, Chu looked at Laura with what seemed like greater curiosity. He seemed to have made a decision when he asked to be excused.
Ho Chi Minh City War Museum…
Le Kim Chu was a well-known and decorated veteran of the Resistance to the American War, as the Vietnamese referred to it, the captain explained. Returning shortly, having cleaned up a bit, Chu performed a short ritual before a shrine at the base of the tree, and after taking a purple cloth out of a box built into the shrine, he rejoined the group.
He seemed quite somber to Jackie, but the politeness of the Vietnamese she found could assume several forms . . . almost always respectful. Addressing the captain but mostly looking at Laura, Chu started his story. Chu’s mother sat by his side, and a group of other elders and a few of the older children silently sat on the ground nearby.
The captain paused from time to time as he studied the veteran before him, clearly entranced by what he was saying and repeating the words and tone almost exactly in the cadence they were delivered. It started off w/a brief history of the A Shau Valley resistance and campaigns and his own history as a young boy born into conflict and war. Chu explained that in 1969 he was 14-yrs-old.
When Chu got to the time of the American patrol’s deadly confrontation w/the surviving villagers, he grew even more somber. Assigned to nearby defense work, Chu and his resistance unit–what the Americans referred to as Viet Cong—heard some of the initial firing and they started toward the area.
When he came upon the forest scene, he saw his younger sister on the ground, naked and her blood spurting from her throat. An American soldier standing near her spun around w/his weapon and Chu instinctively cut loose w/his own. The American went down in a shower of blood and bone. Laura visibly gasped, but Chu clearly felt compelled to tell the raw story.
He later learned from the boy who had been w/her, that he had only seen one American. That soldier, he said, had caught the girl when she told the younger boy to run and hide. A quick analysis of the scene, made it clear to Chu what happened. The American that he had killed was not her rapist and killer. In fact, he had just apparently shot the other American. The fog of war . . .
After a few moments of allowing the women to digest this, Chu continued thru the translator, “When the rest of my force arrived, we transported the bodies of my sister and the soldier I had killed to another area where we honorably buried them together.
Reaching down, Chu unfolded the velvet cloth, which contained several articles, including a ring, dog-tags and a wallet. He passed all the contents over to Laura, the grand-daughter of the man he had mistakenly shot.
Laura could immediately see thru her tears that they were her grandfather’s tags, and the wallet was completely intact w/his various ID, photos and money.
Chu continued, “After the war, we planted this fruit tree over their burial spot w/the shrine and have nurtured it ever since. We also located our small village here . . . to us this is a holy area; the spirits of my sister and your grandfather watch over us. Over time we have grafted the branches of other fruit trees to the original one, and that is what you see today.”
The Lotus Pond…
Laura stared at the tree and the ground for some time. Jackie noticed that the captain in reciting this story, had silent tears flowing down his face . . . very unusual in her experience of the normally stoic Vietnamese.
The captain started to tell the women what procedures were in place to exhume the remains for transport back to the US–.
Surveying Chu and his mother and the surrounding area for a few moments, Laura turned to Jackie, but saying to all, “I don’t know what the Embassy and Army will say, but I’m sure my mother will agree that there is no better tribute to Christopher than the honor and burial that he’s found here.”
Turning to Le Kim Chu, she added, “I want to thank you on behalf of my family, and my grandfather. I can think of no more fitting memorial than that he has been embodied by this tree and that he lies in peace and honor with your sister by his side.”
It was at that moment that for the first time since he was 14-yrs-old, Le Kim Chu, Hero of the Vietnamese Revolution, broke down sobbing in his mother’s arms.
There was nothing for anyone to add. After another hour at which Chu asked and Laura answered, she told him who Christopher was and of her family. Chu quietly spoke of his sister’s brief life.
When they left the village, they traveled first to the Valley site and then back to the base for transport to Ho Chi Minh City and home.
Dr. Publico (Nick Medvecky, PsyD), May 2016…
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What might seem simple to some who have lived and studied a given subject, is often total Greek to others . . . until we too learn. Nothing exists in a vacuum—materially or socially.
In the mountains of Jordan, 1969, with the Palestinian Resistance…
When I first went to the Middle East in 1969, I didn’t know a whole lot more of the area than the average American, which was practically nothing. Geography is not a strong suit in our education, history even less so. Further, what “education” we do get is often grossly slanted.
In these 101-overviews, I’ve tried to very briefly capsulize what I’ve learned. I urge all to further investigate on your own thru the links provided herein and beyond.
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(Sometimes the best way to describe something is thru experiential circumstance. The reader can then best judge for themselves…)
The first day I walked onto the rec field at FCI McKean, PA, there was a baseball game in progress. The prison team wore NY Yankee uniforms and the other was a townie-team (Bradford, PA). MacDonald’s, I think.
I could hear my rap-partner’s rock-band (Larry Genoa) in another section of the field playing “Hollywood Nights.” The strong aroma of grilled meat supplied by the prison kitchen was on the barbecue. I could almost imagine the heady smell of reefer wafting in the air. Almost… I bought some ice cream from the inmate-controlled alternate commissary just off the field.
FCI McKean, PA…
Seeing a group of prisoners sitting on a rail, I couldn’t help but notice an Hispanic or Indian-looking chick in hot pants and halter with long black hair and oversized breasts sitting with them. Inmates generally wore sports clothes in their off-time and the guards had mostly blue jeans, along with their radios and keys.
It was the summer of ’94. Having already served 4-yrs of my 25-yr sentence in three different joints, this was a prison sight one could only imagine. Sitting next to a guy watching the game, I asked, “Who’s the chick?”
He glanced over and smiled. “That’s not a chick, it’s ‘Lola.’ And she’s a he.” That was my first surprise.
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DISCLOSURE: As a Doctor of Psychology (PsyD, Forensic Criminalist), I start this profile/commentary agreeing w/a growing number of psych- and neuro-scientists convinced that Donald John Trump exhibits a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (DSM-5, 301.81).
Some clinicians note that it’s not a “full-blown disorder” in that it has not yet reached a “maladaptive level, causing long-term difficulties in personal relationships or functioning in society.” While that may be de rigueur in therapeutic interventions, I don’t believe that society—even one that prizes a pathological amount of individual narcissism– needs to reach that critical stage, thus causing irreparable social harm. The readers of course can judge for themselves.
Trump and his latest trophy…
Donald was born in 1946 in a wealthy community in Queens, NYC, to his jumped-up slumlord father, Frederick Christ Trump and immigrant mother, Mary Anne (née MacLeod).
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On occasion this blog, AmericanTribune.org, posts articles by authors that I believe are informative and of interest to my readership. The following article by Barry Sheppard, an American correspondent for Australia’s Green Left Weekly, is one of those exceptional posts…
Barry is a Revolutionary Socialist and was a central leader of the US Socialist Workers Party [SWP] for most of his 28-yr membership.
He’s authored the definitive history of the SWP, The Party: The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, A Political Memoir, Volume 1: The Sixties, and Volume 2: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988.
“Opposition to Israeli Policies Growing Among Jewish Americans,” By Barry Sheppard (25Sept’15):
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If you’re looking for the most accurate, complete and useful information on cannabis (marijuana/hemp), you’ll want to acquire Jack Herer’s book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (1985+). Much of it can also be digested in Herer’s 1-hr video of the same name. Meanwhile, in this article I’ll touch upon certain significant elements related to prohibition … its demonization and criminalization. I will also relate briefly my own experiences and expertise as to both its use and distribution…
Despite a growing number of states legalizing marijuana, the drug remains a federal Schedule I Narcotic (declaring it as having no socio-medical value). The federal gov’t and 27 states at this writing still prohibit its growth, possession and distribution.
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Readers of this American Tribune blog (now over 425 indexed articles) will never confuse my political position in the ongoing class-war struggle. Here I present a short-profile of G-Man Melvis Purvis as he relates to J. Edgar Hoover…arguable one of the most hypocritical and successful racketeers in American history.
Sometimes, the best way to see the face of perfidy is in the reflection of how they treat others … especially their own when they run contrary to the “force” program…
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All of us of a certain age have our own histories and remembrances of the 1960s. We came into the Movement w/our personal baggage and encountered one of this nation’s–indeed, the world’s–most significant Cultural Revolutions. We were changed forever. The Fifth Estate newspaper was/is an integral a part of that…
Fifth Estate Logo (“I Will Not Serve”)…
The events that bring me to this Reunion coincided with the creation of the Fifth Estate newspaper back in November 1965 by Harvey Ovshinsky, 17 and Peter Werbe, 25.
The Fifth Estate–published for the past 50-yrs–is arguably the longest running alternative newspaper in America. My own association and occasional contributions w/the paper spans 49 of those years. By no means could I have predicted or foreseen that eventuality…
We all come from somewhere… Fifty-yrs ago, Sunday, September 19th, 1965, I arrived in Detroit on an old paddle-wheel steamer w/a calliope playing “Bye Bye Blackbird.”
(Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration… it was really on a Trailways bus fresh off of a Tennessee chain-gang.)
I was a 23-yr-old vet of the 101st Airborne Division and a civil rights activist. That service carried me through Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee during that quaint period of 1959-65, a century after America’s bloodiest war.
One morning in mid-September of ’65, I’m recovering in the “hole” from injuries on one of the South’s most notorious rock-quarry, chain-gangs at Nashville’s Davidson County Workhouse.
(I was amused later when I saw the movie Cool Hand Luke, Hollywood’s version of a chain-gang. Where I served my time, Luke would have had to practically be a trustee to get assigned to road-gang work.)
The next morning I’m arriving on a Trailways in Detroit. The final instructions I was issued as they removed my chains was, “This is your last warnin’, Yankee Boy. Don’t step your nigger-loving ass south of the Mason-Dixon agin!”
In a very real sense, I was quite fortunate. A couple of my last “free” experiences in the South was in the summer of ’63…
After I narrowly escaped the Klan in Chattanooga, I had a couple of hairy incidents in Mississippi. Waiting in jail for the promised “Midnight Surprise,” the police gave us a witching-hour escort to the state-line and a warning to stay out of Mississippi or, “Next time, it’ll be your last ride.”
The following summer of ’64, I was on a chain-gang, so I missed Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner’s fate in that same Mississippi location. And later still, Viola Liuzzo’s murder by the Klan in Alabama. And those are only the publicized cases of the terror inflicted by the Klan and Southern Jim Crow justice…
1967: DCEWV, Sinclair’s White Panthers and the Fifth Estate offices, Lodge & Warren, Detroit…
Being a Bronx and Long Island boy, I would normally have returned up that way. But a friend from Detroit paid my way out of that debtor’s imprisonment and forwarded a bus ticket. They were happy to get rid of me. I was somewhat surprised and happy to survive. That was a bonus.
(Years later when I attended a NALI convention in Nashville as a criminal/civil investigator, I spoke w/the keynote speaker, the Sheriff, about expunging that “criminal record.” After checking, he told me, “I remember your case, Medvecky. You caused the Workhouse to be put under federal receivership and the rock-quarry gang to be shut down. But don’t worry, all those civil rights-related cases were scrubbed off the books. Never happened.“)
Lobsinger (ctr.) w/Detroit police Red Squad commander, circa ’67…
Lest one think that I was a flaming radical, far from it… I was raised by my Rosie-the-Riveter mother and her partner where both had worked in the Liberty Shipyards in Rhode Island during World War-II (until women were kicked out in favor of the returning men). Thereafter, for the rest of their lives, they worked as waitresses and supermarket clerks.
Peter Werbe, Dena Clamage & friend after a ’66 attack by Breakthrough…
At best, I was a liberal, albeit w/a rudimentary class and feminist consciousness.
My mother’s politics were comprised in her statement to me when I was about 6-yrs-old (listening to the Truman-Dewey presidential campaign of ’48 on the radio … no TVs back then), “Republicans are the rich folks; Democrats are the rest of us.”
I discovered down South, after the Army, that I had a talent for direct sales (door-to-door encyclopedias). While the average worker in the South earned between $25-and-$50/wk (no unions down there), I was pulling down an easy $500/week (that’s $4,000 in today’s money)!
My problem was an incident involving one of my clients. It made me face the fact that, economically, I was a predator. I walked away and vowed to never again prey upon poor working people. I guess that helped set me up for my later socio-political conversion experience.
1968: Plum Street Fifth Estate…
In Detroit I lucked into a factory job as a skilled inspector in the aerospace industry. While I only had a 9th grade education and an Army GED, I wasn’t stupid.
It turned out that the UAW chapter at that factory was Local #212, one of the most radical in the nation. Several of those workers turned out to be “radicals” and socialists who back in the ’30s and ’40s had helped build the unions.
One of them especially, Frere Vallie, had become a left-oppositionist to Stalin’s state-capitalist form of “communism” back in the ‘30s and was, in fact, scheduled to rotate down to Mexico as a body guard for Leon Trotsky when the Old Man was murdered by one of Joe Stalin’s agents in 1940.
Like many socialists, Fred joined the military in WW-II, fought in the Pacific with distinction and earned his sergeant stripes. After the war, Fred and a group of other sergeants led the “Bring the Boys Home Now!” movement.
(The gov’t wanted to delay any homecoming in order to employ the troops to reestablish the former colonies of the allies [including Vichy France in Vietnam] and impose new controls over those of the former Axis. The radical sergeant’s group were having none of that.
(They agitated, caused massive troop refusals, and were locked up in Hawaii. The Soviet Union may have been an ally during the war, but the US gov’t/corporate combine had other plans after the war.)
1968: Harvey Ovshinsky, Plum Street office…
Another of those sergeants was Emile Mazey. The convention of the AFl-CIO threatened a national general strike if Mazey wasn’t returned (he had been elected their secr-treasurer) along w/all the troops. The gov’t relented. (The “no strike” pledge of the unions had ended w/the war.)
Another Local #212 activist was Ernest Mazey, Emile’s brother, who was also the Detroit Director of the Detroit ACLU. Over the course of my first year in Detroit, I had a first-class education in Marxism and political history … revolutionary activism would soon follow.
While I was a general supporter of the War in Vietnam when I came to Detroit (I didn’t make the connection between the capitalist system and these events until my Local #212 period), in the summer of ’66 it all came together.
(I recall walking out of downtown Hudson’s w/my girlfriend early in ’66 and being surprised by several hundred people “marching” w/signs against the war. It was led–or so I thought–by a group of guys carrying a large banner reading: “This is a Communist Parade!” My attitude, I recall, was disgust. But I was also impressed by the fact that all of the marchers were ordinary-looking people, families w/children.
1967: Werbe post-attack by National Guard during the Detroit Rebellion.
(I was to later learn that the front banner was in fact Donald Lobsinger’s proto-fascist group, Breakthrough! usurping the front of the anti-war demo. As the Movement radicalized, they were never again able to pull such stunts.)
I joined the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam (DCEWV) and was soon elected its chairman. I also joined the YSA and the SWP and co-founded the Detroit Veterans Against the War (VAW; which supported returning vets’ creation of the VVAW).
Anyways, all that gives one a flavor of who I am and where I was coming from. The Fifth Estate family is comprised of a vast assortment of experiences … this is only one.
Over time, I transitioned thru many politically-associated incarnations–WSU’s South End daily newspaper, Middle East journalist, criminal/civil investigator, federal prisoner and a PsyD in Forensic Psych–but the Fifth Estate newspaper always remained an anchor. Still is…
One of the most important things to always remember–I constantly remind myself–is that WE ALL ORIGINALLY COME FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE. Never fail to reach across and offer that bridge to someone else…
The 50th Anniversary of the Fifth Estate is being celebrated over a period of time and venues. Remaining open schedules include an Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 4454 Woodward Avenue, You Can’t Print That! 50 Years of The Fifth Estate, Friday, September 11, 2015 – Sunday, January 3, 2016.
The opening MOCAD reception will be held on Thursday, September 10, from 5-7 pm. On Saturday, September 12, 1 pm: “Art as a Social Force” Artists represented in the exhibition discuss their work and its display in the Fifth Estate.
Also at the MOCAD, September 19th, 3-5 pm, will be The Fifth Estate’s 50 Years of Radical Journalism, Commentary & Critique: A Panel & Conversation. MOCAD will host a Fifth Estate staff reunion at 5-7 pm.
Ongoing: Detroit Historical Museum, 5401 Woodward, “Start the Presses: 50 years of the Fifth Estate“ open to the public during museum hours. Runs to August 2016. Free.
A dance/party/concert celebration will be at the HopCat (Canfield at Woodward), September 19th, 8:30-10 pm, featuring Detroit’s Layabouts. BE THERE … I WILL…
Dr. Publico (Nick Medvecky, PsyD), September 2015…
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I present this commentary in order to give my readership (blog, Facebook, wherever) a general reference to what I’m talking about when I address issues involving the myriad varieties of female repression throughout the world (50+% of the human species). As a revolutionary socialist and a male feminist, I have an additional responsibility to use my cultural privileges in a manner that best serves ALL of humanity (or wallow–as conservatives opine against those who empathize and connect w/ALL of humanity–in denial, reactionary guilt and self-pity).
Any normal person would have to wonder, “Where does all this gender conflict come from? Why are women in general and in extremis repressed . . . and worse? Or, is there even a “source”?
Is the political spectrum of sexual dimorphism (the bio-natural differences between men and women) by males to dominate natural . . . as misogynists and conservatives believe?
Personally, I think there are historical antecedents to the struggle for and against equality over and above our obvious physical differences; it’s certainly not a necessary consequence.
For a general overview, briefly, one can start with humanity’s Paleolithic beginnings, say, from some 50,000-yrs-ago.
As an avid historian—including anthropology and archaeology—I’ve followed research that early human habitation sites (home & hearth) document the presence primarily of females, children and old/infirm males. In other words, women ruled the roost. Where were the healthy adult males?
These sites document the preponderance of female fertility totems and a diet of some 90+% being local vegetation and small animals. One can include in this observation the fact that much of the early cave-art was also created by females (given finger-fluting evidence researched by Prof. Dean Snow, Penn State).
One might reasonably presume that males bonded together in hunting, fighting and the pursuit of non-related females. Big game actually provided a very small part of the overall family diet according to middens and other “trash-mound” evidence. In any event, healthy males were largely absent from home chores and responsibilities (as is often the case today).
The fly in the ointment came about some 10,000+yrs-ago when men were forced by socially-evolving circumstances back into home/family-based living.
The factors that dictated this change were probably increased populations, decreased open hunting grounds and large game animals, and threats from other population groups. This probably also coincided w/the development of agriculture, herding and other changes.
One of the major power-role relationships that women previously had pretty much to themselves included both the general rule of home-life and control over the spiritual life of the family.
This objective creation of generally monogamous families—males asserting and usurping property rights over females and their children—set up a perpetual conflict for power that echoes down through history to this very day. We witness the vast variety of its forms throughout human culture.
A significant aspect of that competition is manifested in human spiritual life. Males could hardly leave that power to females and still claim ultimate rule. So their own form of ancient, open-hunt/sky-daddy, male-ancestral myths and worship came to dominate the family, the tribe and evolving partnership w/the state (whichever male-wealth elite group prevails).
Interestingly, it assumed the exact opposite of female spirituality; an all-powerful male sky-daddy that rules over the entire cosmos.
In fact, as synthesized in its current form created only some 3,000+yrs-ago by Abram from ancient Sumer, his supreme male deity does not even require the presence of a female partner. In fact, in the male version of “Genesis,” the women was created from the man, in direct opposition to the obvious natural reality!
He alone existed thru eternity, “created” man in his own image (as claimed, of course, by male authors), belatedly created a female helpmate from the man . . . ad absurdum.
The cultic partners derived from this religion (Christianity and Islam, today comprising over 55% of the Earth’s religions), carry on this tradition into even further male-focus absurdities (one being the “immaculate conception” of Jesus, another being either 72 virgins awaiting male heroes in heaven or a 72-yr-old virgin…I couldn’t quite translate which.) I always wondered what women get out of any of this.
(Part of the answer, of course, is that “successful” females in any male-dominated culture are largely determined by how “male” and male-philosophy subjugated they are. Hillary Rodham-Clinton is perhaps today’s best example of this. More than the power and ideological backbone behind Big Bubba (Bill Clinton), now she seeks to rule in her own right . . . by out-machoing the corporatist profiteering and war-hawking of the males.)
Gradually, female spirituality, deities and beliefs were repressed and, when necessary to male rule, literally burned at the stake.
Where does all this lead? In a nutshell, what we witness today on Earth is an ongoing partnership of these male religious beliefs serving the male predatory power struggle for total dominion over the human race increasingly concentrated to fewer and fewer; the logical consequence of socio-economic parasitism.
(The supreme irony, of course, is that these elite, male-ideological oppressions of the planet and the human species, creates the foundation for its own beliefs. There is NOTHING natural in any of it.)
In simple terms: Every struggle has its logical conclusion. Either these fewer and fewer self-elites of males will self-destruct, humanity will assume social consciousness and responsibility, or it will be the common ruination of the planet (at least for our species).
I suspect our alien comrades observing from other points throughout the Galactic Cosmos are taking bets on the latter. On the other hand, I’ve always wondered if at least some of those “supernovas” we witness out there aren’t in fact, localized evidence of cosmic justice over other similarly predatory species?
Dr. Publico (Nick Medvecky, PsyD), July 2015…
