Commodity Fetish of Folk Taoism as Late Capitalist apocalypse

[voidisyinyang]

The irony of formerly poor folk medicine becoming California Chic when it is imported back into Shanghai:

 

http://news.uci.edu/features/chinese-medicine-goes-global/

In fact, Chinese medicine has become such an American phenomenon that builders of a “California-style” residential neighborhood in Shanghai touted the inclusion of an alternative-medicine clinic.

The irony is not lost on Zhan. “It’s fascinating to see Chinese developers capitalize on West Coast appeal by offering acupuncture to homeowners,” she says.

[thelerner]

You just lied.

Or else you misunderstand basic logic.

 

Her parents didn't know that she was being forced into slavery.

Stop blaming the victims.  That's disgusting and inherently wrong.

 

It's not complicated at all.

 

You got some serious messed up values but then your view is the norm - and that's why the planet is so messed up.

I find you very naive.  You think the parents sent out a 12 year old (interviewers thought she was younger) w/ nothing and thought she'd be just fine, get a good job.  Naive on several fronts.  The parents probably weren't stupid.  They knew there was a good chance she'd wind up in a very bad place but in a land where there's starvation and too many mouths to feed, shit happens.  

 

You're also naive if you think raising the amount paid for cocoa will stop slavery.  If farmers are slavers, earning 30 cents more a pound won't automatically make them sing kumbaya and release the kids.  All it does it does is put more money in there pocket. 

 

I blame all the parties involved, not just Cargill.  You're giving a free pass to the parents who sent out there 12 year old who thinks she can't come back unless she has money, yeah I do blame them.  I blame the farmers, who should give a wage to there workers and freedom to come and go.  I blame the local police who look the other way.  I blame the government that's not putting teeth into regulation and policing that would stop this. 

 

You also put way to much trust in pieces of paper.  That fair trade or some letters on a certificate in a mass market with 100's of sellers means everythings honky dory.  I don't. 

 

The best solution is arrests and confiscation.  Having police or military go farm to farm and arrest those with slaves and confiscate the land.  And keep doing that til its ended.  Throw a tax on cocoa exports to fund it.  That's the best solution.  

 

You do some research but its not holistic.  You miss important questions.  How much does Cargill pay and how much would it pay under fair trade; Would raising it stop the slavery?  It might not.  I know government policing would.  There are social and economic issues ranging from starvation to custom that need to be addressed.  It is complicated and it is solvable.

 

In my opinion getting the government to put teeth into its own laws, close down and arrest farmers who use slave labor.  If the farms can't grow cocoa economically they should either grow something else or turn into something productive. 

 

I'm a better researcher then you because I look at more variables and try to see the problem and solution holistically. 

 

I think my eyes are open, yours are just slits focused on Cargill.  

 

Speaking of Cargill (and to piss off Innersound) let me add this link: http://www.cargill.com/corporate-responsibility/responsible-supply-chains/cocoa/index.jsp

From the site:

 

..We believe that when confronting these problems, it is essential to target poverty, which is often the root cause of labor issues. As farmer incomes rise through our training and community support programs described above, cocoa farmers are more likely to keep their children in school and out of the field.

 

Our farmer training programs include raising awareness of child labor issues. We are working with the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) to implement best practices, which have been proven to help farmers identify tasks that may harm children.

 

Our training is based on the codes of conduct of UTZ Certified and the Rainforest Alliance, which include explicit prohibitions on child labor based on International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions. These allow children only to help their parents outside of school time for a limited number of hours; stipulate that children must not undertake work that jeopardizes their health or safety; and specify that children must always be accompanied by an adult relative.

 

We have a dedicated team on the ground in Côte d’Ivoire to ensure consistent implementation of our child labor policies, coordinate our approach across all our activities and programs, and liaise with other stakeholders. All our employees in Côte d’Ivoire are being trained by ICI to help them understand the issues and identify children who may be at risk, and we work with our certified farmer cooperatives to build similar awareness. If we are alerted to any child at risk, we communicate with cooperative management and regional government officials, so they can investigate and take any necessary actions.

 

In addition to our own efforts, we support the efforts of ICI, ILO, and WCF to help combat child labor.

Edited April 19, 2015 by thelerner

[flowing hands]

Education is the key. Taking profit out of Ivory and animal parts is another. Many end users don't want to know whether there are any elephants left or Tigers and many also don't know that they are being slaughtered by people for great profit. Killing things for medicine is not Daoist, the first tennat of Daoism is to hold life as sacred. TCM doctors who use animal parts are not Daoists and haven't been properly educated in Daoist spirituality. There is no known medicinal property bar fooling oneself that Tiger penises have any given properties to enhance virility.

[voidisyinyang]

O.K. on the Cargill purchasing of cocoa slave labor - it's an issue that based on colonialism of Africa.

 

I said you either lied or your logic was wrong. Now that you have clarified - I think it's just your logic is wrong.

 

The child said her parents are expecting her to bring back money. That says absolutely nothing about what her parents know or what their intentions are.

 

You are making all sorts of wrong assumptions about her parents based on projecting your own limited cultural assumptions.

 

O.K. so you say "the parents probably weren't stupid." I'm sure they weren't stupid - but I think they were targeted. The child was put on a motorbike and driven a long ways to the border of her country and then put on a bus and was waiting to meet her new boss. Do you really think the parents secretly understood their child would be put into a bad job situation?

 

So first you said - oh but the child would probably have starved to death otherwise. Again you are blaming the victims. The context of the situation in Mali is a neocolonial situation. Africa is not poor - Africa has been looted by the white man, plain and simple.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=azkzBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT157&lpg=PT157&dq=the+looting+machine+africa+youtube&source=bl&ots=rQlDOvTP-E&sig=s3BbFaGUbJeq7Okp23zAjFV6fWk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ASQ0VdvsJYHRgwS8v4CQAw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=cargill&f=false

 

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth (Google eBook)

 

So for example when the Chinese traveled the world - and reached the New World before Columbus - the Chinese also went to Somalia because there has been a long history of trade of clothing apparel between Somalia, Arabs and the Chinese.

 

So for the  Cocoa industry - it is also the Arabs - the Lebanese - who act as the middlemen between Cargill and the farmers using child slave labor.

 

Now you post Cargill propaganda.

 

As I stated Cargill is claiming to offer fair trade but the labels they list don't actually offer fair trade - rather they offer Utz certification.

 

You say you are a better researcher on these topics.

 

Actually I have a masters degree on these topics and I have personally debated corporate hacks who control these types of policies - the supply chain policies.

 

I have personally changed supply chain policies.

 

So for example you say that the nation should enforce the farmers - punish the farmers for using child slave labor.

 

In fact most of the child laborers are just the children of the farmers.

 

But for fair trade - and even Utz certified - they are not supposed to use any child labor. The children should be able to go to school.

 

So the issue is the ability of the farmers to afford to hire other help - instead of resorting to child labor and child slave labor.

 

So then you say - well the nation should charge an export tax.

 

Maybe you're not aware that Cargill personally - and when I say personally - I mean Cargill is legally a person protected by the bill of rights according to the U.S. constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court and the Commerce Clause, etc - Cargill personally wrote the WTO GATT "free trade" laws - a closed door global corporate government that punishes small farmers worldwide.

 

 

According to a WTO Secretariat report on Côte d'Ivoire's trade policies and practices, the objective of Côte d'Ivoire's liberalization is to revive the economy which has been in recession for almost seven years mainly because of falling world prices for coffee and cocoa, which presently account for more than half of the country's export earnings.

 

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp8_e.htm

 

So you can see a WTO review of the Ivory Coast right there saying "liberalization" to increase cocoa exports.

 

In other words this is Neo-Colonialism pure and simple.

 

Cargill is extracting child slave labor cocoa in order to make enormous profits.

 

 

Cote’ d’Ivoire’s agricultural economy has focused on smallholder farming and export crops. Those farmers and their exports were heavily taxed. In spite of structural adjustment reforms, which included the reduction of agricultural export taxes as one of its goals, taxation of cocoa and coffee exports (especially cocoa) remains a hallmark of Ivorian policy. Those taxes were reduced briefly around the time of privatization of CAISTAB, but were subsequently raised for key agricultural exports so that export tax revenue in 2003 amounted to nearly a quarter of government revenue.

 

So there has still be periods of heavy taxation of cocoa.

 

the main issue is the derivative speculative trading of the cocoa market which has brought down international price to parity with the farmer price - before even any taxation:

 

 

Farm-gate prices for cocoa have varied between 35 and 60 percent of border prices, changing inversely with international prices and reaching 100 percent of international prices in the early 1990s when world cocoa prices were very low. Since 2000 they have remained around 40 percent of border prices.

 

So the French colonial infrastructure was set up in the 1920s for cocoa production. The cocoa child slavery has been an issue since colonial times. Cadbury was aware of it. Despite heavy government export taxation of cocoa - the price paid to farmers has remained too low - and now with WTO enforced privatization - the international price also remains low:

 

 

The most fundamental reform to trade policy in this sector was privatization of CAISTAB in 2000, emanating from structural adjustment reforms. But when export taxes were briefly lowered at the insistence of international donors, export trader margins increased while farm-gate prices did not and short run international price variability was not passed through to the farm-gate (Wilcox and Abbott 2004).

 

so again the issue is the
 

"farm-gate price" - what the farmers are paid:

 

 

as farm-gate prices as a share of border prices are in 2003 and 2004 at their lowest levels since the late 1970s, when world prices were much higher.

 

and we can see that Cargill has directly argued for lower export taxes:

 

 

Both ADM and Cargill have built processing plants in Cote d’Ivoire meeting the output specifications of their European plants. Origin processing has benefited from reduced export taxes. In 1999 export taxes on processed beans were only 9 percent, compared to 33 percent for whole beans. As taxes on raw beans have increased, so have taxes on cocoa processed products, but those taxes remained nearly 20 percent lower in 2004. Plant managers at ADM and Cargill argue the quality of products now coming from African plants is as good as from European plants, but costs are much higher. Without the export tax reduction incentives, processing would still be in Europe (or North America); but with these incentives, over 25 percent of cocoa beans from Cote d’Ivoire are now processed before export.

 

So that nixes your argument to increase export taxes - Cargill controls the export tax level.

 

That is Neo-Colonialism in action.

 

http://www.iatp.org/documents/cftc-should-impose-tough-limits-on-wall-street-speculators

 

You can see here how there needs to be stronger limits on cocoa speculation derivatives by Wall St.

 

 

 

Position limits reduce speculation by limiting the number of derivative contracts that any one entity can hold for a contract period. Because other commodities are position-limited, the energy position exemption is colloquially known as the “Enron Loophole.” - See more at: http://www.iatp.org/documents/cftc-should-impose-tough-limits-on-wall-street-speculators#sthash.83uV5Uhz.dpuf

 

Here's a book called Ending Slavery: How we can free today's slaves - and it has a section on Cargill and Cocoa.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=SBQaVwsVmu4C&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=cargill+cocoa+derivatives+giant&source=bl&ots=LM7qq3Txqg&sig=Z1KbUs1g1FC48BC1mPvsKK_eOmE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bTA0VdmXC4GdNr2CgcAH&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=cargill cocoa derivatives giant&f=false

 

 

Kevin Bales has personally focused on the chocolate industry and he's investigated this directly in Africa.

 

All these efforts, again, as described in the book - The Cocoa INitiative - was provided by Cargill, etc. and only amounts to $5 million by Cargill.

 

Again Cargill family has $42 billion so they can provide a lot more than $5 million.

 

$5 million is only 1 / millionth of 42 billion.

 

It is a very puny amount to end thousands of child slaves.

 

 

http://www.freetheslaves.net/kevin-bales-talks-cocoa-on-cnn/

 

What does Kevin Bales say after investigating the issue in great detail:

 

 

But I am disappointed. To a large part it’s a resource question. It’s about the fact that while several million dollars a year are moving from the chocolate industry into work on the ground in West Africa, it’s simply not enough to meet the size of the problem… I believe that any time anyone happens to be in slavery, that’s a serious problem.”

 

 

There you go:  More money - pay the workers fair trade.

 

Simple - the reason Cargill has so much money is they pay the farmers very little money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[voidisyinyang]

In Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa, Catherine Higgs traces the early-twentieth-century journey of the Englishman Joseph Burtt to the Portuguese colony of São Tomé and Príncipe—the chocolate islands—through Angola and Mozambique, and finally to British Southern Africa. Burtt had been hired by the chocolate firm Cadbury Brothers Limited to determine if the cocoa it was buying from the islands had been harvested by slave laborers forcibly recruited from Angola, an allegation that became one of the grand scandals of the early colonial era. Burtt spent six months on São Tomé and Príncipe and a year in Angola. His five-month march across Angola in 1906 took him from innocence and credulity to outrage and activism and ultimately helped change labor recruiting practices in colonial Africa.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Islands-Slavery-Colonial-Africa/dp/0821420747

 

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=gcnec1dIKPwC&q=cargill#v=onepage&q=child slave&f=false

 

So this book reviews the modern evidence on child slave labor - 15,000 child slaves.

 

So 2010 the President of Ivory Coast was defeated after he was using cocoa profits to fund his war.

 

He refused to step down despite the democratic elections and so the elected new president called for a boycott of cocoa exports - this forced the current president to step down and also caused international cocoa prices to soar.

 

https://networks.h-net.org/node/7926/reviews/8353/clarence-smith-higgs-chocolate-islands-cocoa-slavery-and-colonial-africa

 

http://socialistreview.org.uk/382/chocolate-islands

 

Even though the main chocolate companies do not buy direct from farmers in

Côte d’Ivoire, the larger trading houses, such as Cargill, ED&F Man and Barry Callebaut,

do employ traitants who purchase from the farms and there seems little doubt that they

could pass on their concerns in this fashion.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CFAQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.antislavery.org%2Fincludes%2Fdocuments%2Fcm_docs%2F2008%2Fc%2Fcocoa_report_2004.pdf&ei=CDY0VYjaDYWaNoOqgKgF&usg=AFQjCNHRPU83_WEHJx7vgv0dfDqYci3RGw&bvm=bv.91071109,d.eXY&cad=rja

 

So the report pdf link says that the big purchasing processors need to be converted to Fair Trade.

 

Just as I've stated.

[thelerner]

O.K. on the Cargill purchasing of cocoa slave labor - it's an issue that based on colonialism of Africa.  I said you either lied or your logic was wrong. Now that you have clarified - I think it's just your logic is wrong.

 

The child said her parents are expecting her to bring back money. That says absolutely nothing about what her parents know or what their intentions are.   You are making all sorts of wrong assumptions about her parents based on projecting your own limited cultural assumptions.

 

O.K. so you say "the parents probably weren't stupid." I'm sure they weren't stupid - but I think they were targeted. The child was put on a motorbike and driven a long ways to the border of her country and then put on a bus and was waiting to meet her new boss. Do you really think the parents secretly understood their child would be put into a bad job situation?

 

So first you said - oh but the child would probably have starved to death otherwise. Again you are blaming the victims. The context of the situation in Mali is a neocolonial situation. Africa is not poor - Africa has been looted by the white man, plain and simple.

Yes, no, no yes.   Simple research, fair trade prices are 10% higher then normal prices (& there is a floor, but prices are way above it).  Prices fluctuate, so even 10% can be 20% lower then last year.  Higher prices aren't going to end slavery.  Because prices have gone up and there's still a slavery problem.

 

Colonial this.. colonial that.. doesn't matter in solving the problem, unless you've got a time machine and small army.  Its not a matter of cocoa prices, its a matter of putting teeth into the law outlawing slavery. 

 

"The child said her parents are expecting her to bring back money. That says absolutely nothing about what her parents know or what their intentions are.  You are making all sorts of wrong assumptions about her parents based on projecting your own limited cultural assumptions." 

 

I don't think 'they secretly knew', I assume they suspected  (sweatshop, slavery or prostitution) was strong possibility.  I make my assumptions because I've read up a bit on Africa, latest book, The Boy who Captured the Wind.  It paints some frightening pictures of hunger in Africa.  It also presents the people there as smart and know whats going on.  Seems hugely naive to send away a 12 year old and assume she'll get a job and be fine.  I could be wrong, but what the hell kind of job did they expect a 12 year old girl to get from strangers?   People know better. 

 

 

As far as mandating higher cocoa prices:

 

If you think giving more money to slavers will make them nicer better people, then go send them a check.  I'd rather send them to jail and take away there farms. 

 

Its easier to lock away the bad guys then fight against supply and demand, ie people/companies paying for commodities what the going market rate is.  Try to make artificial pricing rules, and people will get around them.  In the long run it doesn't work.

 

I am blaming parents, I'm blaming the farmers who are slavers even more.  I'm also blaming the police who look the other way.  I am blaming the government who's not doing something about this.  I would punish the farmers.  I would pay the police more to carry out the law.  I would fire (or put sanctions on) the government who are not enforcing anti-slavery laws. 

 

You're so focused on colonialism that you don't seem to blame the true culprits.  Why not go after the slavers?  The farmers, the procurers.  Your head is so lost in a history lessons you can't see the evil in plain view or the true solution to it.   You're so focused on Cargill as the enemy that you don't evil in front of your face.  The farmers doing actual enslaving (and there procurers).   Big mistake. 

 

Raising the price of cocoa 10%, fine.. but understand it'll fluctuate like any farm commodity and the fluctuations haven't meant a damn thing about slavery. 

Edited April 20, 2015 by thelerner

[voidisyinyang]

Wow you read a book about Africa!? Congratulations! haha.

 

Yeah I read that book also - a few years ago. It was at my uncle's house when I visited - a riveting read.

 

But guess what - in no way does that book focus on structural issues of economics.

 

One person figuring out how to make a wind mill generator from a bicycle alternator - it's pure genius - salvaging the wind mill parts, etc.

 

In fact I actually subscribe to Afrigadget which updates all these types of ingenious inventions from home-spun parts on Africa.

 

http://www.afrigadget.com/

 

There you go - have fun with it.

 

It reminds me of the Gold Rush history channel - Henry Rollins series - highlighting the various inventions to speed the travel across the U.S. to California to get gold.

 

So one dude invented a hydrogen powered steam-engine propelled airship for 3 days travel across U.S. - it worked but a mob destroyed it when he demonstrated it - I guess they all wanted to ride the thing and went insane.

 

So then a dude invented a wagon with huge sails - to literally sail across the prairie. It also worked but too well and the too fast speed busted apart the axles.

 

Those are great tries and even if there had been a successful quick fix trip across the U.S. - guess what?

 

The prospectors searching for gold would still have been basically working in poverty conditions until they struck rich - because that was the structural conditions of their working.

 

So you try to attack fair trade.

 

First you say it should not be enforced.

 

Now you say - it would increase prices by 10%.

 

Yep - people might complain they have to pay more for not supporting child slave labor.

 

I have a family member who complains - but I say - yeah you're whole life you've been being child slave labor chocolate.

 

That shut her up quick.

 

It's called moral superiority.

 

Then you say - yeah but even if the consumer pays 10% more the commodity price will still fluctuate and that won't help slavery at all.

 

I guess you didn't read the links I provided.

 

Arguing from ignorance is a waste of my time. But since you seem quite "invested" in propping up child slave labor - here you go:

 

 

Fair trade’s working methods also have the clear advantage of linking the chocolate
manufacturer directly to the cocoa growers, allowing messages about working practices
and labour rights to be more easily discussed and monitored. The close links between the
fair trade movement and its suppliers also allows the farmers to be involved in such
discussions and to ensure that demands for ethical standards do not actually harm those
they set out to protect.

 

and

 

 

Fair trade standards agreed by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations stipulate that traders
must:
· Pay a price to producers that covers the costs of sustainable production and living;
· Pay a premium that producers can invest in business development and/or social
improvements;
· Make partial advance payments when requested by producers;
· Sign contracts that allow for long-term planning and sustainable production
practices.

 

and

 

 

The minimum price, which should cover the cost of production and ensure a living wage
for growers, is set at US$1,600/t FOB. The Fairtrade premium, set at $150/t is added so
that growers receive $1,750/t. If the world market price rises above $1,600/t the Fairtrade
price is calculated by adding the $150 premium to the world market price. For cocoa sold
as organic, a further premium of $200 is added. If producers wish they must be offered
part-payment in advance, at reasonable commercial rates, by the buyers.

 

and

 

 

For example, in February 2000, when the world price of cocoa was very low,
a typical farmer in Côte d’Ivoire might receive around CFA300,000/t (US$450)2, while
the average New York price for that month was US$860/t, and the Fairtrade price was
US$1,600/t (excluding the US$150/t premium). In March 2002, while the Fairtrade price
remained the same, the New York price had risen to an average of US$1,510/t. The
estimated producer price in Côte d’Ivoire was still much lower than the Fairtrade price, at
around CFA670,000/t (US$890/t). At times the market price rises above the Fairtrade
price and then this price is paid by the Fairtrade buyer, along with the normal premium.
The premium of $150/t is intended for social and economic development projects and the
producers’ organisations must decide democratically how it is spent, that is, how much
will go directly to the farmers, how much is spent on social projects, and how much is
invested in developing the organisation.

 

So I hope that helps you better understand what fair trade is.

 

And fair trade chocolate actually tastes better.

[voidisyinyang]

So  you say - you are blaming the parents.

 

Again that ignores the structural history of colonialism.

 

The cocoa slave trade was originally based on contracts of ownership of other humans - using chains - just exactly like slavery in the U.S. and this cocoa slave trade was going on like that in the early 1900s - the 1920s even.

 

You could say it's very similar to the nonviolent prison slave labor in the U.S. from the fake drug war after the CIA flooded the U.S. with cocaine.

 

So those are structural examples - institutional dynamics that create a huge supply side of economics - in this case the supply is free labor.

 

But with "forced labor" and not just contract slave labor - you don't legally own the person and so even better - you can torture and work the person to death because you can't resell it or its progeny, etc.

 

So yes there has been a study of the traffickers in Mali:

 

 

Driven by a desire to better themselves and to send money back to their families, the
children and young men head for their richer neighbouring country. Away from their
villages and families, they easily fall victims to traffickers who promise them jobs in Côte
d’Ivoire. As they travel toward the border, they are ‘befriended’ by men who assure them
of transportation and work. Once in the hands of the traffickers, they are normally loaded
onto trucks and driven to a house that serves as a way-station. Here they will be locked in
and fed very little, the process of suppressing their will and enslavement has begun. Since
the Mali and Côte d’Ivoire governments instituted tighter border controls in 2001, the
trapped children and young men are often made to wait for days before they are
transported through back roads and forests into Côte d’Ivoire.

The traffickers take their victims to market towns in the cocoa producing areas and offer
them for sale as workers on farms, in mining, as porters or as domestic labour. The young
men, weakened and hungry, do not realise they are being sold since the negotiations take
place in, what is for them, a foreign language. Handing over the young men to the farmers
or to contractors supplying temporary labour for hire, the traffickers pocket their profits
and return to Mali, or another neighbouring country, for another batch of victims.
Travelling back to the farm with their new ‘employer’, the young men look forward to the
promised job, food and a good night’s sleep. Sadly, it is not to be.

 

and

 

 

More than 300 miles from home, far from any settlement, not even
knowing where he was, Drissa was trapped. When he tried to run away he was savagely
beaten. At night, along with 17 other young men, Drissa was locked into a small room,
with only a tin can for a toilet.

On the farm the work was hard. In oppressive heat, with biting flies around their heads and
snakes in the undergrowth, they worked from dawn till dusk tending and collecting the
cocoa pods and doing other work on the farm. Often given only braised banana to eat for
months at a time, they developed vitamin deficiencies. Weak from hunger they staggered
under great sacks of cocoa pods. If they slowed in their work, they were beaten.

 

and

 

 

The farmer
told them that he had put a magical spell on them, and that if they tried to run away they
would be paralysed and he would easily recapture them. If they dared to break this spell
and ran away, worse came when they were captured (as they almost always were). These
teenage slaves were beaten as an example to the others. Stripped of their clothes, with their
hands tied behind their backs, they were viciously whipped. The beatings continued, twice
a day, for several days. The farmer repeatedly demanded an answer to the impossible
question ‘How did you break my spell?’ Some boys didn’t survive. Those that did were
sent back to work as soon as they could walk. Their wounds became infected and they had
to rely on the maggots feeding on their flesh to clean the wounds and save them from
gangrene. The brutality, the isolation, the hunger and exhaustion, all combined to break
the spirit and will of Drissa and his fellow captives, locking them into years of slavery.
This was the situation discovered by a British film crew in the spring of 2000, and its
exposure in the world’s media brought an immediate and far-reaching response.

 

The source cited is this:

 

The International Migration of Young Malians: Tradition, Necessity or Rite of Passage, by Sarah Castle
and Aisse Diara, 2003

 

So instead of assuming blame on the parents - again even if the parents knew the child was to be enslaved - that is due to the imposed colonial conditions and it's not the blame of the parents.

 

http://www.sarahcastle.co.uk/docs/Traffickingreport_final_October.pdf

 

pdf link of that study.

 

I think we can safely say the parents would not knowingly sell their child into slavery.

 

It's even quite possible the parents of the girl did not even know she left:

 

 

intermediaries also comprise people originally from the Malian villages who take young people back with them to Côte
d’Ivoire on their return from visits to the village, without consulting the parents. On their
arrival they give them to Ivorian farmers and take a fee for this. What is interesting about
the parents’ and leaders’ testimonies below is that they contrast so sharply with children’s
testimonies of their own experiences, which indicated that many left their villages freely
and used intermediaries as a means to reach their goal.

 

So again you made a bad assumption and then blame the victims.

 

Why would you do this?

 

You don't know if the parents even knew and yet you are blaming the parents.

 

It is a lie to say the parents would have known the child was going into slavery or even suspected bad working conditions, and it's a lie to blame the parents.

 

 

The intermediary advises the
child to say nothing to his parents as he runs away and joins the employer on the road
outside the village.
To recruit children, the intermediaries promise high wages, clothing
and good living and working conditions. They forbid the children to
tell their parents because they will refuse to let them go.

 

and

 

 

In many cases, the parents know nothing
of the child’s migration until the child reaches Côte d’Ivoire, if they happen to be seen by
someone from the original village who knows the child. Families with the means to do
so then send someone to fetch their children.

 

and

 

 

To obtain our children, the intermediaries from our village contact
them by night, unknown to the parents. They trick the child by
proposing attractive salaries. The children meet them at an agreed
spot. They pay the children’s transport costs.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[voidisyinyang]

Finally you seem to worship the myth of the supply/demand model.

 

As I've pointed out repeatedly the Cargill family has $42 billion dollars.

 

So far they've invested $5 million to stop child slave labor - and yet they say a "fair trade" option is available - and only the Utz certification is available by the products they own.

 

So then you continue to say I just focus on Cargill - for good reason!

 

It's very easy - they have the SUPPLY of money - and they need to pay it to the farmers to stop slavery.

 

Very simple - their wealth is from the slavery of the children on the farms.

 

So yes - slavery is based on a supply/demand model.

 

I understand that - you want to keep the supply/demand model that has continued to maintain slavery around the world.

 

There's currently 20 million people in forced slave labor.

 

I disagree with you.

 

I think that people should have basic human rights met.

 

Guess what - most people agree with me.

 

It's not just my personal vendetta against Cargill.

 

As I pointed out Kevin Bales - who personally negotiated the cocoa agreements to stop child slave labor has concluded

 

that Cargill needs to pay more money!!

 

So take it up with Kevin Bales, the expert on the subject.

 

As I said - I have personally done similar work to Kevin Bales -

 

http://www.mndaily.com/2000/02/25/u-activists-fight-new-sweatshop-monitoring-system

 

There's one example.

 

 

At the Fair Labor Task Force's forum last week, several students voiced pro-WRC sentiment and criticized the Fair Labor Association, an alternative sweatshop-monitoring task force accused of being managed by corporate interests. Task force member and University graduate student Drew Hempel collected more than 400 signatures echoing the students' concerns.

 

So for over a year - I first introduced hundreds of pages of documents that stopped the fake corporate "voluntary" monitoring of sweatshop conditions - that was going to be rubber-stamped by the over-paid brown-nosing administrators.

 

Then I met with the general counsel of the University - 9 times - over a year - and finally I announced I was going on unlimited hunger strike - to use my qigong skills.

 

The president of the University personally emailed me pleading with me not to go on hunger strike and then he signed in the agreement for the school to join the independent monitoring - the Workers Rights Consortium - not the fake "voluntary" monitoring by the corporations.

 

O.K. so I have personal experience in this.

 

So for example when I visited the Berber village in Africa - all the females had tattoos on their chins. Why? Because the Arabs used to steal the females for as sex slaves and then tattoo them when they were "used up" and return them to the villages. So the females all tattooed themselves preemptively to stop the Arabs from knowing who was used up already.

 

So I know that African parents pro-actively work to stop the sex slavery trafficking of their children and that is also true in this Malian villages.

[voidisyinyang]

Drew Hempel

For the past ten years, Drew Hempel has worked on applied social research and theory in ecological justice. Hempel recently completely a stint as a columnist for the University of Minnesota Daily, chalked up eight arrests for civil disobedience and helped lead several successful sustainability projects for monitoring sweatshops, divesting from corporations collaborating in slave-labor projects and passing a selective purchasing resolution at the Minneapolis City Council. Beyond theory and truth-seeking, he is planning on applied research in corporate charter revocation and corporate personhood, a subversion of citizen sovereignty exposed by the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy.

 

So that's my bio from 15 years ago.

 

on a cached page for this

 

http://nonduality.com/whatis8.htm

 

As I stated - I currently am a purchaser of fair trade organic produce.  that's my current job.

 

Business has been growing.

 

• Target expands Made to Matter program in organic, natural ...

  www.startribune.com/business/292820181.html

  • Star Tribune

    Feb 20, 2015 - Target expands Made to Matter program in organic, natural products ... After a successful introductory year, Target is doubling the program this ...
  • Target to Double “Made to Matter” Sustainable Product Brands

    www.triplepundit.com/.../target-double-made-matter-organic-sustainable...
  • Feb 23, 2015 - Target's will double its “Made to Matter” product line, which includes a variety of brands that are made with organic and sustainable ingredients.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Innersoundqigong

[voidisyinyang]

 

There is a great demand for the mass supply of slave labor.

 

Yep I understand that.

 

Just as there is great demand to rape the ecology of Earth - it's called "primitive accumulation."

 

I wrote a paper in college for my environmental economics class called:

 

The Incorrect Supply and Demand Model.

 

haha.

 

It's based on incorrect logarithmic logic - without understanding nonlinear feedback resonance.

 

The dude being interviewed - works for the Workers Rights Consortium.

 

again I volunteered a lot of my time and effort - to initiate and lead a campaign to get the U of MN to join the Workers Rights Consortium.

 

That was a structural change.

 

It created a new economic structure that remained after I left and more people continued as volunteer activists to continue the effort.

 

There has already been successes.

 

One of the first successes ironically was in the same town of the mother of my brother-in-law - Apopa El Salvador!

 

http://www.news.wisc.edu/13649

 

So that's UW-Madison report on it - that's where I did my undergraduate degree where I also did a lot of activism.

[thelerner]

Ok.  I get it. 

Your solution is paying farmers more money.  When they get more money they'll stop using slave labor.  (That's nice but it won't solve the slave problem, prices have gone up and there is still a problem.)

 

My solution is arrest any farmer found using slave labor and confiscate the land.  Fewer farmers = higher cocoa prices, better for farmers who don't use slave labor (not a perfect solution for those in extreme poverty).  You for some reason are against that.  ??

 

Fine, write your petitions, stop eating some brands of chocolate.   

 

Honestly, good luck.  We are on the same side or at least want the same thing.  My way is less philosophical and  more direct.

 

& I'm out of here.

[soaring crane]

You also put way to much trust in pieces of paper.  That fair trade or some letters on a certificate in a mass market with 100's of sellers means everythings honky dory.  I don't.

 

yes, that fairtrade label/system is one of the flimsiest of the sort. I wouldn't and don't put much faith in it at all.

[Walker]

A 2012 article in Mother Jones identified a shocking example of economic equality in the United States:

 

As Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute points out, the six Walmart heirs now have more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined, up from 30 percent in 2007. Between 2007 and 2010, the collective wealth of the six richest Waltons rose from $73 billion to $90 billion, while the wealth of the average American declined from $126,000 to $77,000 (13 million Americans have negative net worth).

 

Of course, what makes this statistic even more vexing is that as the income divide increases, it increases the perceived need for people with extremely limited incomes to buy at Walmart - or comparable stores that carry inexpensive consumer goods primarily made overseas. As BuzzFlash at Truthout has pointed out before, this is the "self-cannibalization" effect on the US worker who has lost his or her job to manufacturing being moved overseas to nations where rock-bottom wages are the norm. Replacement jobs at minimum wage, if they can be found, then leave the workers with just enough funds to buy goods that used to be made in the US and, therefore, increase the fortune of the Walmart heirs.

According to a recent BloomburgBusiness article that focused on just one Walmart heir: “At the current rate, it would take a full-time Walmart employee working 12 hours a day more than a million years to earn the equivalent of [Christy] Walton's net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.”

 

So try and wrap your head around the two statistics cited above: 1) Six people (Walmart heirs) have passive net worth - the money is inherited through stock; they don't need to do anything to earn it - equal to more than the bottom 40% of the people in the US; and 2) It would take a Walmart employee working a 12-hour day a million years to earn just one Walmart heir's financial assets.

 

Heh.

[voidisyinyang]

Fair trade is a hell of a lot more than just paying the farmers more money.

 

First of all to become fair trade certified you have to join a farmers cooperative.

 

Now is the fair trade label perfect? Obviously not but it's way better than a self-voluntary corporate label.

 

The big issue here is whether Cargill will actually pay the farmers a fair price so they don't have to use slavery.

 

Again Cargill's family has $43 billion in net worth while they have paid $5 million to "solve" the problem of thousands of children in slave labor.

 

In other words they don't want to pay more money for what they are buying - and they have made millions in profit from slave labor.

 

It is quite simple. Cargill is directly buying the cocoa from the farmers.

 

Cargill knows that the cocoa trade in Africa has been based on colonial slavery - enforced by Western militaries.

 

Does Cargill want to continue that slavery tradition? If they refuse to pay a fair trade then yes they are continuing the colonial tradition of slavery.

 

Now should the farmers be punished because they were forced into a slavery condition from Western military colonialism? Of course not.

 

To argue the farmers should be punished is again to blame the victim and to be in denial of the origins of the slavery in the first place.

 

These are export cocoa plantations set up by French and Portuguese colonialism using slavery enforced by the military.

 

O.K> so can the fair trade label be improved?

 

Sure - https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/bodycare/stop-transfair.php

 

Here's a good critique - there are different "fair trade" labels out there.

 

The best fair trade label is Institute for Market Ecology’s (IMO) Fair for Life

 

Yeah so for example I just bought or picked up from the business I work for - some "Fair for Life" fair trade pears from Argentina today.

 

 

Founders Roberto Garrido and his son Sebastian were some of the very first Organic fruit growers in the Rio Negro Valley, and are also one of the largest. In fact the Garrido family was one of the first to initiate fruit production in the Rio Negro Valley in the early 1900s. Their family-operated cooperative owns their packing house, packing for themselves as well as other growers. “We knew we had to find the best organic pear grower out there, and we’ve been working exclusively with PAI ever since,” said David Posner.

Sustainability is at the core of Awe Sum Organics. Along with being organically certified, Awe Sum Organics and PAI are fair trade and sustainably certified through IMO’s Fair for Life program guaranteeing social responsibility at all stages of production.

 

http://www.freshplaza.com/article/118666/New-season-organic-pears-from-Argentina-arrive-at-AweSum-Organics#SlideFrame_1

 

So usually Fair for Life gives quite a bit of detail about the farmers.

 

For example - I earlier posted a newly certified Fair Trade organic tomato farm that we've been buying from.

 

It's very exciting to me - that these farmers are getting 100,000 U.S. dollars kicked back to them from the Fair Trade certification and then they vote democratically how to spend that extra money.

 

That is how the Fair Trade certification works.

 

http://fairtradeusa.org/blog/power-fair-trade-produce-workers-mexico-invest-their-communities

 

So you can read the details there - and the farm has their own videos, etc.

 

So can we find similar results for fair trade chocolate?

 

I think so - the biggest fair trade cooperative is in Ghana.

 

I know this from buying fair trade chocolate but then I read about it in the links I posted.

 

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/buying-fairtrade/chocolate

 

You can see this list of Fair Trade chocolates.

 

I buy several of these brands. Each bar of chocolate gives details about the farms.

 

 

In 2011-12, cocoa farmers earned more than £7.5 million in Fairtrade Premiums and a large part was invested in directly supporting farming families meet their daily needs.

 

http://www.divinechocolate.com/us/about-us/divine-story

 

So there's a detailed story about a fair trade cocoa farm in Ghana.

 

 

The farmers' ownership stake in The Day Chocolate Company a first in the fair trade world, means that Kuapa Kokoo has a meaningful input into decisions about how Divine is produced and sold. Two representatives from Kuapa Kokoo are Directors on the company's Board, and one out of four Board Meetings every year is held in Ghana. As shareholders, the farmers also receive a share of the profits from the sale of Divine. This innovative company structure was recognized when Divine was awarded Millennium Product status.

 

And this isn't just a small deal - it's a big cooperative.

 

 

After seeing the benefits Kuapa gains for its members, more and more farmers want to join and the association now has upwards of 65,000 members organised in approximately 1400 village societies.

[voidisyinyang]

[voidisyinyang]

[voidisyinyang]

[voidisyinyang]

In this thread I have focused on racialized sexism.

 

I have pointed out that white people actually comes from malnutrition - from lack of vitamin D in the wheat farming diet.

 

I have tied this to a wrong philosophy - called the "Symbolic Revolution" from around 9000 BCE when wheat farming started in West Asia - and this spread into Europe, creating "white people."

 

So that original farming started an ecological crisis by the 8th millennium BCE. I have documented this in my book "Alchemy of Rainbow Heart Music."

 

So then white farming spread around the world as "Ecological ImperialisM" as the eponymous book by PRofessor Alfred Crosby details.

 

and so finally I have argued a la David Palmer - that the modern qigong fever is based on a Westernization of traditional Chinese culture - and so the qigong as a mass movement was a "vanishing mediator" and then got replaced by an individualized, commodified focus of qigong - led by a fetishized focus of the spiritual training.

 

With a fetishized commodity focus of qigong training - the training done is more superficial - the focus is on conceptual teaching - and so a la

 

impulse buying

 

there needs to be new teaching materials introduced as new conceptual material.

 

This does not mean necessarily deepening the actual spiritual training - but instead can just mean taking in new conceptual information.

 

This is the paradox - since the focus of the training should be on the Emptiness - the actual taking away of conceptual information.

 

And so I've argued the way to get around this paradox is to be aware of this white commodity fetishized superstructure focused on conceptual teachings - and instead just focus directly on the qigong master themselves and the traditional teaching context.

 

So for the traditional teaching context I have focused on the Bushmen culture which composes 90% of human history from before human language was evolved or invented - with the same trance songs documented from the oldest tribes of the oldest languages - which proves those trance songs existed before human language existed - from around 70,000 BCE.

 

But ironically the "spiritual" community knows next to nothing about the Bushmen culture and the training the relied on.

 

Fortunately the qigong training manual - "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" is very much in line with the traditional training of the original human culture.

 

Unfortunately this training is completely opposite of the current "sex sells" culture where everything has been fetishized - where every  practically living moment is focused on male ejaculation addiction - if not subconsciously then overtly.

 

And so to do the original serious qigong training means to literally undermine this deep mind-control psycho-physiological "matrix" that goes back to Plato and the deep origins of Western wheat farming from around 9000 BCE origins.

 

The trance music training - which is recreated through tai chi training and simple standing active exercises - is based on complementary opposites that resonates in the Emptiness as a spacetime vortex creating spirit light synchronization - harmonization and qi electromagnetic healing energy.

 

This ritual to train to be a "real man" has been lost to modern society - and so the modern person is controlled by their kundabuffer - the lower emotions of the lower back energy blockage.

 

We can say on a basic level the training is to use pressure and body posture to resonate the complementary opposite energy channels of the body so that the stress sympathetic nervous system is switched to the opposite extreme of the parasympathetic relaxation energy - that ultimately controls the heart via the vagus nerve - the heart being the strongest resonance of electromagnetic energy in the body.

 

This was dubbed the "Relaxation Response" by the Harvard medical scientist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relaxation_Response Herbert Benson who also documented the real tummo heat creating abilities of the Tibetan yogi monks.

 

So the wheat diet is actually the opposite of the "relaxation response" because wheat causes increases in cortisol as inflammation.

 

http://www.poliquingroup.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/1237/Avoid_These_10_Foods_That_Increase_Cortisol_Impede.aspx

 

So low fiber "white" bread - refined flour - increases cortisol because the high insulin spike from the high gluten levels then causes the adrenal glands to extract sugar from the extremities and by doing so increases cortisol as the sympathetic stress hormone.

 

Cortisol depletes the serotonin levels in the brain - and I would argue that the kundalini energy is from the lower body serotonin getting into the cerebrospinal fluid via activation of the vagus nerve from the deepened relaxation response.

 

So the wheat diet actually shuts down the kundalini energy and is key to the Kundabuffer mind control for the masses.

 

So then salt was used to reduce the acidity of wheat diet - salt was the payment for Roman imperial soldiers - hence their "SALary."

 

The irony of this is that salt also increases cortisol stress levels.

 

Obviously it's not that wheat and salt are inherently evil but the basic truth is that for the original human culture = 90% of human history - there was no salt and no wheat in the diet and the diet was much higher in potassium in ratio to the sodium.

 

Also the effect of group trance drumming is to lower stress:  http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=18&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEUQFjAHOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdaniellevitin.com%2Flevitinlab%2Farticles%2F2013-TICS_1180.pdf&ei=yN01VeL1PMjjsATVs4GQDw&usg=AFQjCNGErweu1L3wVxz-cODxc-VqqzYbPg&sig2=ljIMJM9zE3nydwBnkUSjZw pdf link on neurochemistry of music:

 

These three studies claim that recreational music-making
counteracts the patterns of immune modulation that
normally occur due to stress and aging, particularly in
individuals with dysregulation, including older adults.

 

So as I stated in regards to the commodity fetish it is literally based on this male ejaculation addiction cortisol stress spike as a positive feedback cycle that is structurally built into Western civilization based on the logarithmic mathematics causing increased intensity and increased pressure around the world.

 

The victim of the sex male ejaculation addiction violence abuse then turns to "holding their shit in" as a final attempt at self-control.

 

This is the origin of the commodity fetish abuse - and so wheat, salt and even money are based on this dopamine-cortisol cycle - like gambling addiction is proven to be a dopamine spike addiction also - the basic pursuit of money is from this original male ejaculation addiction.

 

And so in the qigong training when the sympathetic stress nervous system is pushed to its extreme - but without ejaculation  - and with the resonance of complementary opposites - then the opposite parasympathetic extreme actually causes a spike in serotonin and this flushes out the bowels - literally flushes out the money or the otherwise repressed crap-stress in the body.

 

And so then we can see that the racialized sexism is tied to this male ejaculation addiction leading to a system of malnutrition that actually caused the white race - as based on that original fundamental error of the "symbolic revolution" where an attempt to contain infinity was pursued - using rectilinear, patriarchal, geometric symbols for right-hand technology and left-brain dominant logic.

 

When the Emptiness based on complementary opposites is made the new intention - the focus of the electromagnetic mind consciousness - then a new re-wiring of the body-mind can take place within the fourth dimension of the eternal holographic realm of spirit-astral space-time travel. Literally consciousness can unwind the stress damage from previous generations of male ejaculation addiction - with the increased tension and violence it caused - and so then the heart-mind can be rediscovered as the secret of impersonal immortality in harmony with ecological justice of life on Earth, as was the case for 90% of human history - the Harmless People as detailed by Dr. Bradford Keeney and Dr. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItiXR5m1yAY

 

Because of the increasing inequality of late-capitalism - as I have stated the white race has literally become a commodified fetish - the ultimate commodity - to be sought after - for example white females are the most highly prized prostitutes - white blond females - for oil-rich elites in the middle east.

 

The "White LIke Me" documentary expose is a fascinating and brilliant eye-opener on just how internalized this white commodity fetish has been developed in the U.S. - the most unequal economic culture on the planet - with the greatest extreme of wealth and poverty and the highest concentration of people of color in prison for nonviolent crimes - as the new slave-labor work force.

 

So can Taoism as qigong training simply be "added on" to this Westernized problem that has now spread around the world?

 

We shall see.

 

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t83150/

 

Consider this Neo-Nazi "white pride" forum with a member saying he practices qigong training.

 

How easily it is assimilated into the late-capitalist white racist milieu.

[eye_of_the_storm]

 

Published on 8 Feb 2015

Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars marketing drugs to doctors.

[voidisyinyang]

John Olivier is an excellent expose comedian - I just watched the above link, plus the Civil Forfeiture, the Police militarization, the ALEC, the Nuke weapons. All great.

 

O.K. so in terms of exposing the commodification of qigong as the ultimate late-term capitalist product - we might want to look at qigong before it was commodified.

 

We can get a glimpse of that by an early NY Times article - early in terms of Western exposure to qigong: 1986.

 

 

There are no data on the number of qigong masters, but Dr. Yang believes the number has dwindled to a mere handful. ''The people who really have attained a high level of qigong, I would think there are not more than 20 in the whole country,'' he said.

 

20 advanced qigong masters in all of China in 1986.

 

Sounds about right.

 

 

 

Through Chinese history, the technique and practice of qigong has usually been transmitted from father to son, which was how Dr. Yang learned it. 'Always the Son Was Taught'

 

''In China, these sorts of skills were always taught secretly, always the son was taught, not the daughter,'' Dr. Yang said. ''When I was born, and turned out to be a son, my grandfather was extraordinarily happy. He was a master of qigong, but he had work as guard for wealthy people. My grandfather began giving me qigong after I stopped nursing. In this way, my grandfather projected his own ''qi'' into my body.''

 

''It is not easy for one man to control the energy of qigong if there is not a good foundation,'' continued Dr. Yang. ''Even if you exercise for many years, if there is no foundation, it cannot easily be controlled.'' Two keys to this control, he said, were constant practice of qigong exercises, in the same way every time, and the influence of a teacher who imbues the student with his own qigong.

 

This sounds completely accurate.

 

"Even if you exercise for many years, if there is no foundation, it cannot be easily controlled.

 

How to control it?

 

Constant practice, in the same way every time, and influence of a teacher who transmits the energy into the student.

 

In other words we are talking very strict training - and notice he says it was the sons taught, not the daughter.

 

So clearly this training is based on sex energy and storing it up and the male energy.

 

Of course this is not to say that females can't be qigong masters - but again look at the original human culture - it is the males are train to be spiritual energy healers - qigong masters. Some of the females do also and in fact the females are considered the original healers - but it is said they can handle the pain of child birth while the men can handle the pain of N/om.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/02/science/a-traditional-chinese-therapy-harnesses-the-vital-force.html?pagewanted=2

 

So the training it taught secretly. Always.

 

Maybe that's why a google search of the qigong master's name doesn't turn up much.

 

So to control the energy - again this implies the sex life force focus of the training - it's in secret and the males are trained - and it's very difficult to control.

 

http://www.accordinstitute.org/2007_3_3_exploration_magnetic_field_of_acupoints_of_human_body.htm

 

So then I find this quantum qi research from China - a fascinating paper on telekinesis.

 

That study relies on Ms. Chulin Sun, qigong master. So I googled her name.

 

More hits.

 

 

Chulin Sun can induce plant seeds to grow shoots and roots several cm long within 20 min using mentally projected qi energy (Fig. 1). This has been demonstrated on more than 180 different occasions at universities as well as science and research institutions in China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) as well as other countries (e.g., Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.) (Ge et al., 1998; Qin et al., 1998; Lee et al., 1999). We took part in and repeated the qi germination experiments seven times, and five of them succeeded (Ge et al., 1998). This remarkable effect on seed development has drawn widespread attention (Tompkins and Bird, 1973; Lee, 1998), but the biological mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon are unknown.

 

http://zeniclinic.com/2011/04/dna/

 

Another experiment that is repeated is "Mind photography" - the ability of the mind's qi to create an image on some recording device. this seems to corroborate a Westerner who had this ability - Ted Serios.

 

These are fascinating studies!

 

 

to measure the velocity of all the molecules before deciding which to let through and this requires energy.

 

This study is cited in this pdf link:

 

 

Information-energy equivalence in qigong: reviewing Dossey and Schwartz’s “Therapeutic Intent/Healing Bibliography of Research” in light of Pang Ming’s Three Levels Theory of Matter

 

O.K so a 2010 Nano-matter study is cited to corroborate qigong energy!

 

Information is the source of the energy!

 

what is the "information" - measuring the total velocity.

 

That is fascinating - and so as I've stated - the time-frequency uncertainty principle as complementary opposites - is the Tai Chi - it is the source of the energy - this eternal measuring process of time/frequency - which occurs before even velocity is measured.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDcQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sfu.ca%2Fjnonlocality%2Fpublic%2Fjournals%2F1%2FPREPRINTS%2FKeanII1020212.pdf&ei=rhU3VdqYNNHOsQSyXw&usg=AFQjCNF_WQ0BH9D62Xf3IHrOyPmqTESHuw&sig2=htkI4jgwQIxs4--zU6y5-Q&bvm=bv.91071109,d.cWc

 pdf link.

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/420996/physicists-convert-information-into-energy/

 

"It's hard to overstate the significance...." That's the scientists gushing over what - information creating energy.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Qigong-Ancient-Chinese-Healing/dp/0966542150

 

A Musical Qigong book.

 

This is from an international qigong research yahoo group list

 

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/qiresearch/conversations/messages/1405

 

 

 

http://www.joltv.us/english/english%20index.htm

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shen-Wu-Music-Therapy/185964308277900?sk=app_2405167945

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/musicqigong/videos

 

So the basic view of Master Shen Wu is that music qigong was a very early healing treatment that got lost and he is bringing it back.

[voidisyinyang]

So it's ironic you mention the spiritual masters flying around, etc.

That's exactly what I'm focusing on in that thread.

called:

Commodity Fetish of Folk Taoism as Late Capitalist apocalypse

My point is that while there is no escape from this - the Taoist or male initiation training is sort of the final commodity of sublimated sex energy which at the same time is then marketed as the ultimate good to be pursued in the late-capitalist market.

Can it be achieved? Most likely not.

Yet it has been achieved in the near past - like the article I just posted from 1986 NY Times with a qigong master saying there are only 20 real advanced qigong masters in China.

The real training has to be done in secret - by the males - away from the females and so unless this foundation is achieved then the power is next to impossible to control.

And that is indeed how it was originally taught as the Tshoma ritual - which I was just studying from the various online sources.

But yeah I'll spend my money on a real qigong master to feel that amazing qi bliss in the center of my brain any day. haha.

People have no idea what they are missing. Until they die I think.

Instead we have mass male ejaculation addiction syndrome.

For example all the cleavage shots which are the norm now - it's really just primate female display behavior.

Primate female display behavior is mainly the female backside.

For human females though the cleavage is just the front side equivalent of backside display behavior.

So the cleavage is the subconscious message of male ejaculation - insert it in that cleavage for the doggy style dopamine bliss - and that is the subconscious reaction to the cleavage as display behavior.

And so think of McDonalds - what is that big arch but a big subconscious cleavage symbol? And then what is the message of McDonalds - Loving the Beef.

The whole thing is about maximizing male ejaculation. And people really do love it because if the man doesn't keep his testosterone jing energy up - then the weak will be killed off - kill the poor is the main message of the technofeminist "might is right" message.

So then it's the edifice complex based on missile envy - technology is just a huge ejaculation contest - the biggest ejaculation will be the destruction of civilization itself.

[voidisyinyang]

 

O.K. so I have now full corroboration that the white male has been completely "commodified" in China.

 

This is an amazing episode I just watched of VICE news.

 

there's a whole industry of "rent a white male" in China - as models, butlers, fake doctors, also hip "dates" at bars, pretty much anything to bring prestige to an event for photo-ops, etc. like business fairs - as fake business "investors."

 

O.K. so the Chinese expert said that due to Communism and the cultural revolution - when in 1980 China finally opened up to the West they realized how "undeveloped" their country was and so became completely obsessed with Western culture - so much so that white people were considered to be superior.

 

I actually just remembered - I had watched the documentary on Red Obsession - China just became a larger wine producer than France - based on China's total obsession with red wine.

 

 

So my point is - o.k. China will be the biggest global economy by 2030 according to current projections.

 

But this projection is based on a commodity fetish of the white male!

 

Meanwhile for example China has just announced plans to have 86% of their electricity from solar power by 2050 or something like that - but neglects to mention that the industry is based on using forced labor of Tibetans - some 1.2 million Tibetans have been put into forced labor.

 

And so real Taoist meditation - is completely against modern China - and yet qigong has been subsumed into a global commodification process - Americanized as it were.

 

 

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/rent-a-white-guy/308119/

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003652442/rent-a-foreigner-in-china.html

 

rent a white dude in China - nY Times video