"History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history", said Clarence Darrow.
by dredd
DNA also "repeats itself", but an individual who lived in the feudalism of the dark ages, whose genetic configuration is now found in the DNA of a descendant who is alive today, will not have had the same exact feudal experiences as their living descendant is having today.
That is because history and DNA repeat themselves in principle, not in actual exact physical replications of either individuals, nations, or specific feudal events.
But the fundamental "genes" or characteristics of historical feudalism, as has been shown in this series, have replicated themselves within American culture and society.
We see this genetic repetition of history in the form of neofeudalism, which, in this series we have called "American Feudalism" because we are focusing on its reemergence into American society rather than in other nations, whether the same would be true of other nations or not.
Those who have argued for a revision of the history of feudalism were mentioned in the previous post of this series (American Feudalism - 5).
If you break down their arguments into their most basic genetic components, they argue that since the word "feudalism" is a word that was created after the historical events which the word "feudalism" is used to describe, the word should no longer be used.
I would rather focus on the principles that were in the DNA of those feudal societies, and which of those are still found the DNA of the modern version of those societies.
So, let's review the fundamental genetic material of feudal society:
Warfare was endemic in the feudal period, but feudalism did not cause warfare; warfare caused feudalism.(American Feudalism). It is at once clear, even to the casual observer, that the genetic material of the feudal historical time-frame is still replicating itself, that is, history is repeating itself.
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Feudalism was the medieval model of government predating the birth of the modern nation-state. Feudal society is a military hierarchy in which a ruler or lord offers mounted fighters a fief (medieval beneficium), a unit of land to control in exchange for a military service. The individual who accepted this land became a vassal, and the man who granted the land become known as his liege or his lord. The deal was often sealed by swearing oaths on the Bible or on the relics of saints.
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Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, which was composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces.
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Feudalism was a political system which was dominant in Europe during the Middle Ages. First used in the 1600s, the term refers to a hierarchy of reciprocal military and legal obligations among the nobility. In simplified terms, a lesser noble (the vassal) would pledge his loyalty (fealty) to a higher noble (the lord) in exchange for land (a fief). In return, the vassal gave military service to the lord. As armies were expensive to raise and maintain, a lord was able to distribute the cost (in men and money) among his vassals.
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Feudalism was based on the exchange of land for military service. King William the Conqueror used the concept of feudalism to reward his Norman supporters for their help in the conquest of England. Life lived under the Medieval Feudal System, or Feudalism, demanded that everyone owed allegiance to the King and their immediate superior.
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The feudal society was constructed for one reason: security. The nobles wanted the security of maintaining control over their far-reaching kingdoms, so they were forced to delegate power to local control. The peasants wanted security from marauders and barbarians from neighboring lands. They also wanted security from invading armies. And thus the development of the feudal system and the fief structure was almost inevitable. However, all this came at the great expense of the common man. He gave up many freedoms for his security. The question we ask you is: Was it worth it?
If I wanted to appease the current historians who no longer respect the word "feudalism", I would offer them the word "Wartocracy" as an alternate, because that shoe also fits:
And as war begat the King and the military noble, so it also begat the slave. There had always been a slave class, a class of the unfree, among the English as among all German peoples; but the numbers of this class, if unaffected by the conquest of Britain, were swelled by the wars which soon sprang up among the English conquerors.(American Feudalism - 2). War is the fundamental gene that produced feudalism, the king, the military vassal, and slavery.
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It is an old saying, nearly a dozen centuries old, that "war begat the king". It is no less true that war, not civil, but international, begat feudalism.
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War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
War is fundamental either in American Feudalism or in American Wartocracy:
The Worldwide control of humanity’s economic, social and political activities is under the helm of US corporate and military power. Underlying this process are various schemes of direct and indirect military intervention. These US sponsored strategies ultimately consist in a process of global subordination.(Global Research, see also Why Washington Can’t Stop). This overall landscape of Wartocracy is broken down into various command zones that cover the entire globe:
Where is the Threat?
The 2000 Global Report published in 1980 had outlined “the State of the World” by focusing on so-called “level of threats” which might negatively influence or undermine US interests.
Twenty years later, US strategists, in an attempt to justify their military interventions in different parts of the World, have conceptualized the greatest fraud in US history, namely “the Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT). The latter, using a fabricated pretext constitutes a global war against all those who oppose US hegemony. A modern form of slavery, instrumented through militarization and the “free market” has unfolded.
Major elements of the conquest and world domination strategy by the US refer to:
1) the control of the world economy and its financial markets,
2) the taking over of all natural resources (primary resources and nonrenewable sources of energy). The latter constitute the cornerstone of US power through the activities of its multinational corporations.
Geopolitical Outreach: Network of Military Bases
The US has established its control over 191 governments which are members of the United Nations. The conquest, occupation and/or otherwise supervision of these various regions of the World is supported by an integrated network of military bases and installations which covers the entire Planet (Continents, Oceans and Outer Space). All this pertains to the workings of an extensive Empire, the exact dimensions of which are not always easy to ascertain.
The graphic to the left shows the world wide command structure of MOMCOM.(The Virgin MOMCOM - 4). The only "feudal" word we no longer use to describe government is "king", but the genetic makeup of "king" is still around.
That is: USNORTHCOM, USSOUTHCOM, USCENTCOM, USEUCOM, USAFRICOM see also this, and USPACOM (which are all part of the size of government) [NOTE: Since this page was posted by Dredd Blog on 8/4/2011, the military has changed or removed these web pages, the Wayback Machine versions of that time have been inserted (if available) to replace these current pages: USNORTHCOM, USSOUTHCOM, USCENTCOM, USEUCOM, USAFRICOM, and USPACOM].
Because, like the feudal king "who could do no wrong", the government today has "sovereign immunity", "sovereign secrecy", and far, far more military power than any feudal king had:
Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done ... for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war(The Government of MOMCOM: Wartocracy - 3). As was the case in feudal times, commercial weaponry is a considerable enterprise for the Wartocracy today:whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now ... One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."
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“I would not say that CIA has been taken over by the military, but I would say that the CIA has become more militarized,” Philip Giraldi, a retired career CIA case officer, told The Nation. “A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying; it’s supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program.” The CIA, he added, “is a killing machine now.”
It’s pop-quiz time when it comes to the American way of war: three questions, torn from the latest news, just for you.(The Government of MOMCOM: Wartocracy - 2). The fundamental dynamic of dark age feudalism is the same fundamental dynamic of the Wartocracy today:
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Now, consider question two in our little snap quiz of recent war news:
In 2011, what percentage of the global arms market did the U.S. control?
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a) 37% ($12.1 billion), followed closely by Russia ($10.7 billion), France, China, and the United Kingdom.
b) 52.7% ($21.3 billion), followed by Russia at 19.3% ($12.8 billion), France, Britain, China, Germany, and Italy.
c) 68% ($37.8 billion), followed by Italy at 9% ($3.7 billion) and Russia at 8% ($3.5 billion).
d) 78% ($66.3 billion), followed by Russia at 5.6% ($4.8 billion).
Naturally, you naturally eliminated “d” first. Who wouldn’t?
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The correct answer for 2011, however, is the singularly unbelievable one: the U.S. actually tripled its arms sales last year, hitting a record high, and cornering almost 78% of the global arms trade.
By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the military was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American Manufacturing. From 1947-1990 the combined US military budget amounted to $8.7 trillion ... Military industries crowd out the civilian economy ... and lead to severe economic weakness.” Consider that the US military is now spending over $1 trillion per year including all black and related expenses, which is more than the entire rest of the world combined. The next biggest spender is China at $91.5 billion according to Chinese figures. Johnson summarizes, “Devotion to military Keynesianism is, in fact, a form of slow economic suicide ..."(The Virgin MOMCOM - 5). Another genetic marker of feudalism is privatization of justice, such as with prisons:
So many theories, revisions, and counterrevisions have been proposed to explain the term feudalism that it has become like Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: we may not know what it is, but we know it when we see it ... Feudalism ... was essentially the extreme privatization of the government functions of defense, administration, and justice. The mechanism for putting these functions into private hands and paying for them was the fief, usually an estate with dependent peasants to work it, granted to the holder, or vassal, by a lord, or seigneur, in return for military service.(American Feudalism - 5). Dick Cheney, shown in the graphic at the top of the post, loves privatization of justice (especially torture) like in the dark ages.
I will finish with what was quoted at the beginning of this post: "History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history".
