[p2p-research] Fwd: ZNet Daily Commentary: Climate and Political Tipping Points By Ted Glick

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Kevin,

is this something you can discuss on our blog,

are your sources Eisler/Gambutas, or others?

are you familiar with saharasia of demeo, see

http://www.orgonelab.org/saharasia.htm


James DeMeo's *Saharasia* is the largest and most in-depth scholarly study
on human behavior and social violence around the world which has ever been
undertaken. The findings summarized in Prof. DeMeo's book cover the entire
globe, from early prehistory into modern times, integrating on world-maps a
full sweep of standard research data from the fields of archaeology and
history, plus an in-depth cross-cultural review and mapping of data from
over 1000 distinctly different human societies, from standard
anthropological data bases. It employed standard cross-cultural correlation
tables on over 60 different variables, plus geographical mapping and *quadruple
blind* research procedures to insure objectivity, and all the basic starting
assumptions are clearly elucidated in advance. The work also incorporates
his own personal field research in the deserts of the Middle East and
Southwestern USA. No great knowledge of maths or scientific methods is
required to follow the logic and research to their conclusions, though the
book is clearly written for scholars. An early period of generally peaceful
social conditions is documented in prehistory, but with a major shift
towards patriarchal-authoritarian and decidedly violent social conditions
across the Saharasian region after a major climate-shift from wet
grassland-forest conditions towards harsh desert conditions at c.5000-4000
BC. Major epochs of cultural diffusion are also presented on maps, showing
how violent patriarchal authoritarian, sex-repressive and child-abusive
behaviors were carried outward from their Saharasian origins to nearly every
corner of the globe. It presents previously-unknown geographical patterns in
dozens of different human behaviors, beliefs and social institutions
representative of human violence and warlike aggression, such as slavery,
castes, genital mutilations and a low women's status. The findings have been
praised by many, published in scientific journals and magazines, cited
repeatedly, but in largest measure have been willfully censored out of the
discussion by most within the editorial power-circles of modern academics
and mainstream journalism, which continues to embrace the flawed and
disproven theories of "violent genes" or other "original sin" concepts. None
of those theories, nor anything like them, can stand in the face of the new
evidence presented in Prof. DeMeo's *Saharasia*.

On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 4:37 AM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/21/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Subject: ZNet Daily Commentary: Climate and Political Tipping Points By
> Ted Glick
> > To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com
>
> > Climate and Political Tipping Points
>
> > Ted Glick's ZSpace Page /     ZSpace
>
> >  An article by Stephan Faris in the April, 2007 issue of The Atlantic,
> "The Real Roots of Darfur," explained the connection between climate change
> and the war in Darfur:
> >
> >  "The fighting in Darfur is usually described as racially motivated,
> pitting mounted Arabs against black rebels and civilians. But the fault
> lines have their origins in another distinction, between settled farmers and
> nomadic herders fighting over failing lands. . . Until the rains began to
> fail, the (nomadic herders) lived amicably with the settled farmers. The
> nomads were welcome passers-through, grazing their camels on the rocky
> hillsides that separated the fertile plots. The farmers would share their
> wells, and the herders would feed their stock on the leavings from the
> harvest. But with the drought, the farmers began to fence off their
> land-even fallow land-for fear it would be ruined by passing herds. . .In
> the late 1980s, landless and increasingly desperate Arabs began banding
> together to wrest their own (tribal lands) from the black farmers. . .
> >
> >  "Why did Darfur's lands fail? For much of the 1980s and '90s,
> environmental degradation in Darfur and other parts of the Sahel was blamed
> on the inhabitants. But by the time of the Darfur conflict four years ago,
> scientists had identified another cause. Climate scientists fed historical
> sea-surface temperatures into a variety of computer models of atmospheric
> change. Given the particular pattern of ocean-temperature changes worldwide,
> the models strongly predicted a disruption in African monsoons. 'This was
> not caused by people cutting trees or overgrazing,' says Columbia
> University's Alessandra Giannini, who led one of the analyses. The roots of
> the drying of Darfur, she and her colleagues had found, lay in changes to
> the global climate.
> >
>
> To put this in a much longer range historical perspective, the
> distinction between  "cooperator" and "dominator" societies follows a
> division between agrarian and pastoral/nomadic economies.  Some
> theorists like Oppenheimer trace the origins of the state to conquest
> of agrarian populations by patriarchal, warlike pastoral nomads.  A
> relatively recent historical example is the conquest of the eastern
> Slavs of Kievan Rus by the Mongols.  The cruel, authoritarian
> political culture of modern Russia is a direct outgrowth of the
> brutality they experienced under the Tatar yoke.
>
> And the impetus the original desertification of North Africa and
> Central Asia gave to the growth of nomadic cultures on marginal land
> may have been a historical tipping point towards authoritarianism and
> patriarchy.  The desertification of Central Asia led to a long-term
> outflow of pastoral nomads from the steppes, overrunning the settled
> agrarian populations to the south and west and promoting the rise of
> extractive states and authoritarian cultural values.  Through a chain
> reaction, the threat of conquest led to the adoption of militaristic
> values by threatened populations.
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
> http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
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