Metal Reviews

Very interesting book on this subject.

Peasants generally have little to do with it. Guilds took tithes from their members. Guild members practised their trade. Peasants occasionally had to go to a tradesman when they couldn't find or fix or produce something themselves. They were not extorted for this. Where did guilds find most of their funds? Trade.

Yes, peasants provided food for the other segments of society, but generally they did not suffer overly, except in cases of bad harvests. But in those cases, everyone suffered.

It has an important theocratic element as well. Cathedrals were community projects, so the peasant class obviously would've been overjoyed to know he contributed a (very small) bit to such a great work to God. Similar to the men who spent a lifetime built pyramids for their kings.

In short, the peasants didn't mind, don't ascribe them with revolutionary principles.

Without wanting to generalise, the elite trades guilds presumably would have depended on the patronage of ruling class elites. Who in turn depended on conquest and, I'd imagine also ultimately on the expropriation of land and taxation. There wasn't this autonomous "free trade" sphere completely removed from coercive state power.

They're asking for the capital which was made off of their work back, not the white people back. When the white corporations left they took all of the effort the people put in. The companies set it up to make people work for them contra their original lifestyles and then the company left them with nothing despite the effort they put out. It's called theft. They're starving because the food production became concentrated into white farmers and agribusiness and when those people were forced out of the country, there was no money to run the farms. I'm not positive so I won't say anything directly related to Zimbabwe but hyperinflation is commonly encouraged by the World Bank and IMF as can be seen in Chile. That can be supported by facts.


This account completely ignores what we received from them or what they had prior to our influence. You gauge everything by Western standards, the civilizations that existed before may not have had electricity but they had stability and credible values rather than the colonizers. The idea of a federal state which we have here in America came from Iroquois indians. We didn't just bring stuff to them, we took values from them. Our agriculture, for example, would be decrepit without the contributions of native Americans to the European system. In the 1600s, England imported some hundred thousands of tons of guano to fertilize the land because they essentially strip mined their fields.

As for the aid we've given them in terms of loans, it has come with loan conditions, opening up their closed economies to foreign companies, often Western companies which have made trillions on monopolizing and controlling these now open markets.

Social darwinism? Cool. Genocide by voluntary ignorance.

Why should we ignore history? You cited a stat from 50 years ago. I could've said that was "50 FUCKING YEARS AGO!!!!" too. They may have not had a concept of ownership but our concept should've applied to them as well and we should've recognized their right to the land they've worked. It's called theft. And to think that just because we had guns while they had arrows makes our actions justified then you're signing up for a world where the gangster down the street has a right to rape your wife since he had a gun and your wife didn't.


We imported those people. We forced their migration. If we didn't want them then we shouldn't have done what we've done in their countries. They are just trying to survive as you compel them to do. They bring their country into ours in the same manner as we brought our companies into their country neglecting their system of government.

This is what I'm talking about:



we've brought these people here so we should be accepting of them. We've touted ourselves as a melting pot and said bring it on yet when they get here we treat them like shit.

And don't get me wrong I love Western culture, I just detest some of the assumptions which have been assimilated into the mix over the years. I also have respect for what other people have done insofar as I want our culture to be respected.




You posted pictures of cathedrals, ignoring the fact that cathedrals were built off of money exploited from peasants in the countries which they were built in, the gold was imported from the Americas and Africa doesn't have the same types of wood to make the same types of building yet have made tons of epic accounts of architecture which you've just ignored.




This completely ignores how we've influenced their political process over the centuries. We've encouraged leaders which suit our interests through funding and fucked over more left-leaning leaders. This same thing can be seen in how Hugo Chavez is framed through the media. He is a lavish military dictator comparable to Stalin and not the person who people marched out in the streets en masse to put into power or voted to end term limits for, or the man who has given power to local committees for distribution of resources, or is working to get South America out of IMF debt.

Mexico's laws and class system directly reflect NAFTA's policies which we've benefited off of and have only harmed the Mexican people and American people for that matter. Yet you're more willing to hate them then the American companies who've fucked both groups over.

Err, no, in fact the feudal system collapsed largely because the guilds (the nascent middle class) acquired too much wealth and importance and demanded more political leverage in return for their support of the ruler. Many (smallish) conflicts were fought over this. Charters like the Magna Carta, held proudly in a city's belfort, find their origins here.

And some trade unions were exceptionally powerful, wielding military power equal to that of small states. The Hanseatic guild is the obvious example of this, but there were many other hanses (I do not quite know how it is called in English, but a hanse is a grouping of similar guilds in a wider area) that had the means to hire sizeable mercenary armies if need be - another example of how worrisome they could be to the noble class.

So, trade removed from state power? Yes, to a large extent. Free trade? No, monopolised by major guilds and hanses.

Fair enough but this doesn't counter the underlying point. You're the history nerd so correct me if I'm wrong, but surely those guilds DID depend on demand for goods they produced, without which they would have been powerless in the first place? Where did this demand come from? Becauseit seems to me it could well have been directly dependent on the conspicuous consumption of the ruling class and hence in turn indirectly dependent on all the things that entails. That commercial forces outstripped and overpowered the feudal ruling doesn't change this.

Not your sort of thing, I'm sure, but his description of the rise of the Medici in Florence is quite interesting and basically revolving around exactly what you're talking about. Big business depended on state power for its rise because without war and territorial expansion it had nothing to invest in. Then, according to Arrighi the florentine upper guilds were essentially bought off by the merchant ruling class (who'd made their money financing warfare) through their own conspicuous consumption of luxury goods and in the process breaking and impoverishing the Florentine working class entirely. Kind of divide and rule- this being the working class that had actually seized power for a short period in 1378. (another example of non-quiescent underlings, perhaps).

I guess the point I'm making is the probably fairly uncontroversial one that business- and hence the guilds also- were part of a chain of power relationships that did involve the state. State power and commercial power were not two distinct spheres, and still aren't.

Needless to say, I disagree with just about every word.
I'll address it later when I am home and have sufficient time, and if I feel like it, which I may not; enough time has been wasted on this going round in circles.

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/06/marijuana_legalization_on_november_ballot_in_detro.php

go detroit

Of course they depended on the demand for goods the guilds could produce. However, the case in those days was that of a nascent specialisation among human communities. Demand was primarily a question of what was needed in a community of a certain size and type. A rural community of a few dozen people had a smith who could make and repair basic farming tools. In a city of a few thousand, the amount (=> more than one smith) and diversity of activities (=> further specialisation) was much greater, of course. Out of these two evolving drives the guilds were born: to agree upon fair prices, to preserve and enrich knowledge of the trade, etc. So you see, demand was not really instigated by the ruling class, much more by a social evolution from basic self-sufficient agriculture to a specialisation in one type of economic activity to the exclusion of others - because things became so complex no one could learn or do it all by himself any longer.

As far as specialised guilds for products only noblemen could afford went: Of course, you had jewelers and such. But they were such a niche business for most of the Middle Ages that they hardly left a cultural footprint. Guilds were defined by their economic prosperity, certainly, but also by their pure manpower. Again, the agreements between guildmembers were the first and foremost purpose of guilds.



I'm not sure what the full cadre of this part about the Medici is, but you're citing a situation from a wholly different Medieval world than that of the age of the cathedrals in Northern Europe. Northern Italy basically didn't have any noblemen; it just had a large middle class, with a few exceptionally powerful families whose titles were identical or equivalent to nobility, but defined by wealth rather than birth. This situation is much closer to ours than it was to that of late feudal Northern Europe. So uh, we were already diverging from the whole cathedral thing, now you've dragged this in as well


Ultimately, the guilds could cooperate or waylay the state according to their own interests. I'd say they were distinct enough to not accuse them of being a tool used by, or in league with, the nobility to oppress the peasantry.

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer. Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

Massachusetts attorney June Jensen represented Simon Glik who was arrested for such a recording. She explained, "[T]he statute has been misconstrued by Boston police. You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want." Legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley agrees, "The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law - requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense."

The courts, however, disagree. A few weeks ago, an Illinois judge rejected a motion to dismiss an eavesdropping charge against Christopher Drew, who recorded his own arrest for selling one-dollar artwork on the streets of Chicago. Although the misdemeanor charges of not having a peddler's license and peddling in a prohibited area were dropped, Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison.

In 2001, when Michael Hyde was arrested for criminally violating the state's electronic surveillance law - aka recording a police encounter - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld his conviction 4-2. In dissent, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall stated, "Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals…." (Note: In some states it is the audio alone that makes the recording illegal.)
The selection of "shooters" targeted for prosecution do, indeed, suggest a pattern of either reprisal or an attempt to intimidate.
Glik captured a police action on his cellphone to document what he considered to be excessive force. He was not only arrested, his phone was also seized.

On his website Drew wrote, "Myself and three other artists who documented my actions tried for two months to get the police to arrest me for selling art downtown so we could test the Chicago peddlers license law. The police hesitated for two months because they knew it would mean a federal court case. With this felony charge they are trying to avoid this test and ruin me financially and stain my credibility."

Hyde used his recording to file a harassment complaint against the police. After doing so, he was criminally charged.
In short, recordings that are flattering to the police - an officer kissing a baby or rescuing a dog - will almost certainly not result in prosecution even if they are done without all-party consent. The only people who seem prone to prosecution are those who embarrass or confront the police, or who somehow challenge the law. If true, then the prosecutions are a form of social control to discourage criticism of the police or simple dissent.

A recent arrest in Maryland is both typical and disturbing.
On March 5, 24-year-old Anthony John Graber III's motorcycle was pulled over for speeding. He is currently facing criminal charges for a video he recorded on his helmet-mounted camera during the traffic stop.
The case is disturbing because:

1) Graber was not arrested immediately. Ten days after the encounter, he posted some of he material to YouTube, and it embarrassed Trooper J. D. Uhler. The trooper, who was in plainclothes and an unmarked car, jumped out waving a gun and screaming. Only later did Uhler identify himself as a police officer. When the YouTube video was discovered the police got a warrant against Graber, searched his parents' house (where he presumably lives), seized equipment, and charged him with a violation of wiretapping law.

2) Baltimore criminal defense attorney Steven D. Silverman said he had never heard of the Maryland wiretap law being used in this manner. In other words, Maryland has joined the expanding trend of criminalizing the act of recording police abuse. Silverman surmises, "It's more [about] ‘contempt of cop' than the violation of the wiretapping law."
3) Police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley is defending the pursuit of charges against Graber, denying that it is "some capricious retribution" and citing as justification the particularly egregious nature of Graber's traffic offenses. Oddly, however, the offenses were not so egregious as to cause his arrest before the video appeared.

Almost without exception, police officials have staunchly supported the arresting officers. This argues strongly against the idea that some rogue officers are overreacting or that a few cops have something to hide. "Arrest those who record the police" appears to be official policy, and it's backed by the courts.

Carlos Miller at the Photography Is Not A Crime website offers an explanation: "For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man."
When the police act as though cameras were the equivalent of guns pointed at them, there is a sense in which they are correct. Cameras have become the most effective weapon that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse. And the police want it to stop.

Happily, even as the practice of arresting "shooters" expands, there are signs of effective backlash. At least one Pennsylvania jurisdiction has reaffirmed the right to video in public places. As part of a settlement with ACLU attorneys who represented an arrested "shooter," the police in Spring City and East Vincent Township adopted a written policy allowing the recording of on-duty policemen.

As journalist Radley Balko declares, "State legislatures should consider passing laws explicitly making it legal to record on-duty law enforcement officials."

Hopefully the new police guidelines on how not to murder people at protests will mean less of this.

Was this a reference to the dissident who was clubbed, killed, his friends knew who did it yet the state refuses to prosecute?

Blair Peach?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_Peach

Partially, but also Ian Tomlinson:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson

http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns

oh good

So, they can watch us, but we can't watch them. Sounds like bullshit to me.

It's their job. What's yours?