Sea People and Land Folk

What we are and what we think we are is entering a "don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters", subterranean homesick blues, level of cognitive dissonance.

America has reached a position wherein we now recognize there are costs to a society which is perpetually unable to move forward or make any progress against all the hot air blowing out of Washington.

To understand how did we get here, to recognize the kind of a jam we are in, we need to choose another tack, to question some of the things we, the people of the planet Earth have taken for granted for the last four millenia, not the least of which would be the need for leaders to cut the deals before global warming leaves us with the Sea People taking over from the Land Folk.

According to historians, the only true Democracy has been found among brotherhoods of pirates. The desire to get our fair share by taking it may have its ancestral roots in the warriors code of might makes right, or in shares of the catch.

Most of the Early American colonies were ruled by merchant pirates engaged in slaving, smugling and privateering. There are some who consider the continuation of those national ideals espoused by our founding fathers equate to national security.

While the relation between wealth and war may not profit those who work for a living, do we not consider dying or sacrificing for a patriotic cause honorable on the grounds of whatever liberty, equality, and fraternity it may provide our descendants through the trickling down of the wealth to make us the richest society on earth?

Piracy begins with the art of gathering intelligence about where the money is, then putting a gang or crew together to exploit the opportunities and obtain strategic control of a region through bribes, plots, coups, assassinations, enslaving the occupants, exploiting their resources and building wealth. Its not too far removed from the concept of organized crime or commerce among the landfolk.

Maybe terrorism is a better and more descriptive term for international commerce but any way you put it its an art form deep rooted in our system of government in the form of the protection racket of taxation and tithes by the rich without representation or salvation for the poor.

Lugals or big men, be they kings, presidents, warlords, gangsters, lobbiests, lawyers, corporate raiders, vandals, huns, vikings, crusaders, politicians, land barons, timber barons, cattle barons, railroad tycoons, newspaper tycoons, stockbrokers, oil monopolies have extended the oportunities for piracy for four millenia until in our modern world we take government policies like the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, globilization and emergency powers, as normal policy.

Piracy and terrorism or ripping off the goods of others without proper compensation is so deeply imbeded in our nature that it can be traced back to the Sea People attacking the Land Folk in the Jemdat Nasar c 2600 BC when the ships of Meluhha (Lothal), Makan (Oman)and Dilmun (Bahrain) docked at the quays of Agade (Sargons capital in what is now modern Iraq).

Land Folk should probably be considered as emerging with agricultural settlement from the nomadic pastorialists and hunter gatherers that preceeded them. Since it was their settlements that first gave Sea People something to raid, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of what we think of as the progress and civilization enabling the art of Warfare.

Sociologically the Sea People make their living from fishing; trading with and pillaging the Land Folk by baiting them into a trap and in more recent times lending them money.

Their settlement pattern in what are called punic sites typiclly employ small islands just off a mainland otherwise known as suburbs.

While the land folk depend on agriculture and industry for their substence and thus control the means of production, their most important contribution to society is the leisure to develop education in science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, and government.

Land folk empires such as the Egyptians, Hittites, Persians, Romans and Gauls, have been engaged in commerce and war with Sea Peoples such as the Peleset, Tjeker, Danai, Lukka, and Weshesh for millenia so there is plenty of precedent in which to observe the form of their contracts, covenants, treaties and constitutions.

Their Punic descendents such as the Phoenecians, and Carthaginians are probably the root of Platos story of an Ocean Empire larger than Libya and Asia combined. Arab pirates picked up where they left off and the competition continued with the crusades. The arts of kidnapping torture, murder, holding for ransom or without rendition come naturally to them

The Sea People are better known for the development of skilled trades, war and mercantilism. Asia and Europe as well as the Middle East followed the same pattern. In Europe the Vikings traded their skilled crafts with the peoples of the Mediterranian and east into Russia using rivers and carrying horses for the portages.

Once there began to be trade in the Atlantic, even before the New World was discovered Pirates began exploring the Azores, Canaries, and Cape Verde Islands while continuing to expoit the Mediterraniam Black Sea, Erythrian Sea and the Indian Ocean

Before the domestication of the beasts of burden  and their first use in war c 2000 BC made caravans possible the land folk were using the Sea People as bankers, explorers, traders and entrepeneurs to build and man their fleets and to develop international commerce and organized crime as arms dealers, drug dealers, building contractors, and in the petrochemical industry.

Rich fleets full of frankincense, myhr and gold as well as copper, tin, gems, glass, spices, perfumes, drugs, slaves, baboons, and exotic purple dyed garments and salt were put together as cargos at international emporia located where overland caravans reached ports and then one Sea People would contract to deliver them safely across the seas while another would plan their plunder.

If opportunities arose the treasure fleets might be attacked at sea or even at the docks making some loosly organized gene, oinkos, and phratre fabulously wealthy.

Many Americans continue to believe that if wealth is good, an ownership society is better. At the same time they believe religiously that a concept of Democracy based on all people being created equal, makes We the People a part of the decision making process.

The idea is that its a good education and hard work rather than ruthless exploitation that make you rich. If you follow this logic sharing with those who haven't earned their share is an onerous obligation

We need to overcome the idea that getting our fair share requires a shoot first, negotiate later, approach to compromise, be it with other nations or groups we can identify as carrying less guns or otherwise not being our equal.