Monday, July 6, 2009

THE OPIUM WARS

from murph

Before I get into the post, here are some pics of the current garden produce and a cooking try from Freeacre.

English Muffins -
Umm-umm! Here's my first attempt at making homemade English muffins. Turns out they are neither "English" nor, really, "muffins." But, they are delicious! After you make the dough and let it rise (a bread machine is fine), you roll it out, cut into rounds, and cook on a cast iron skillet for ten minutes on a side.


A days produce from the garden -
It's been about a month since we planted outside and we're just starting to be able to pick some things. I plan to make pasta prima vera from kale, chard, shallots, garlic, snap peas, and some asparagus I had on hand. See that rhubarb? I'm going to make a vanilla pudding and rhubarb pie for Dave when he gets here. Also got eight eggs today. Not too shabby for a "post collapse" meal.


THE OPIUM WARS

I wrote this post some time ago and just never put it up. With the expanded news currently coming out of Afghanistan, the Taliban and Pakistan concerning the opium trade, and its use by bankers and the state, I thought this might be timely. LATOC had two references about it today. Since it is much more lucrative to keep the population in fear of illegal drugs and the immense profits involved that goes to fuel even more wars, like the war on drugs, there sure doesn’t appear much of a chance of it ending anytime soon. It is another of those manufactured wars, like the war on terrorism that the neocon believers so love to buy into. Russia is starting to complain about the importing of opium into its country now. As if they haven’t got enough problems as it is.

I recently read an interesting and well documented book “The Opium Wars, The Addiction of one Empire and the Corruption of Another” by W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello. I am writing a post concerning the book because of modern day parallels. I knew of the opium wars but had few details concerning it.

There were actually two wars, the first from 1839 to 1842, and the second 1856 to 1860. Eventually the French Empire along with the British were pitted against the Qing Empire

The book starts out with this image;

“Imagine this scenario; the Medellin cocaine cartel of Colombia mounts successful military offensive against the United States, then forces the U.S. to legalize cocaine and allow the cartel to import the drug into five major American cities, unsupervised and untaxed by the U.S, The American government also agrees to let the drug lords govern all Colombian citizens who operate in these cities, plus the U.S. has to pay war reparations of $100 billion to the Colombians’ cost of waging the war to import cocaine into America”.

According to this book; Britain was importing opium from India and selling it in China. A very small amount was taken to Britain for medicinal uses. The Chinese government was very much against the opium trade in its country for a variety of reasons and outlawed its use, which angered the traders from Britain and the government in Britain. Since at this time the British were themselves becoming slaves to the Chinese tea, they had to pay for it in some way, and that was by selling opium to China. Other products manufactured in Britain for trade were rejected by the Chinese in that they felt they made better quality than the British. So opium was the way the tea could be paid for.

To make things worse, the Chinese considered themselves the pinnacle of civilization having been around for 4000 years, and considered the British barbarians. Although, the literal translation of the Chinese term meant ‘not speaking Chinese’, the term barbarian was used to defame the Chinese. The Chinese also demanded all payment for tea and silk in silver.

In 1839, Lin Zexu, high commissioner of Canton sent a letter to Queen Victoria that said; “Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly you would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused…Formerly the number of opium smugglers was small; but now the vice has spread far and wide and the poison penetrated deeper”.

While there was bitter fighting within the government over the trade, the British citizens pressured to keep the tea rolling in and eventually the hawks won out and the wars started, in effect to force the Chinese to allow the importation of opium to pay for the tea. When the Chinese resisted, the complaining by the opium and tea traders finally forced the government to send military to the importation points and force compliance by the Chinese.

At this time in history, Britain’s empire was huge and enforced by might of arms. The Chinese were still in the 14th century in warfare and completely outclassed. Even at odds of 20 to 1, there was no contest. Throughout those 20 years, the causalities were mostly Chinese, with very few French or British being killed.

In modern terms you don’t take a knife to a gun fight, which was exactly what was happening. The Chinese primary weapons were bows and swords, the English with Enfield rifles and cannons. The Chinese armies didn’t stand a chance.

Anything sounding familiar here in American history?

For those of you who have read Michael Rupperts book, “Crossing the Rubicon”, and still have a copy, turn to chapter 3 that describes the involvement of the CIA in drugs and money laundering through shady banks. The drugs have to end up somewhere, and most of them ended up in U.S. cities, and the cash used to prop up the stock and commodities markets. It is literally the opium wars all over again, forced trade in an addictive substance to finance shaky deals elsewhere, including the political corruption that must take place for its implementation. In the case of the opium wars, not only was the opium facilitating the supply of tea that the country demanded, but made the elite fabulously wealthy.

During the opium wars, China was literally looted of its historic treasures and many of them destroyed by the looting troops.

Anything sounding familiar here in U.S. occupation of Iraq and the looting of the former Soviet state? For that matter, Germany and Japan also. I guess we just got to accept the idea that ‘to the victor belong the spoils’.

One of the subjects covered in this book is how this trade in opium and the wars and looting of China corrupted Britain.

Again, anything sounding familiar here?

While America mostly stayed away from the opium trade in China, the British intervention did make it easier for the Americans to do their trade thing.

The Chinese have always been very aware of history, and their role in it, and their civilization in the 18th and 19th centuries was truly an empire. Their complete humiliating defeat at the hands of the British and French was a very bitter pill. That is one group of people with very long term memories. In 1888, the Times of London overestimated, probably, that 70% of adult males in China took opium. Whatever the case in total addiction, it was huge, and it affected the entire society.

Within a year of taking over the country in 1949, Mao’s government outlawed all narcotics and their cultivation, use and sale, thus eradicating by dictatorial power 150 years of social devastation to the Chinese people, and he did it in half a generation, about 20 years. All it demanded back was a complete loss of social freedom.

So much for a war on drugs.

Last thing, a neat pic from Montana. "This little honey was standing on the crest behind the village to the west. Showed no fear of me or the little wheeler i was riding. Some days are just so glorious that you just know that you are standing in
the hand of our creator.

15 comments:

Palooka's Revenge said...

dough? bread dough? sure looks like it. i grew up on it. yummmmm is right!! hot otta the pan and drippin with sweet creamy butter. we always had fried bread every time mom baked. which was a weekly ritual. she flattened em out more and bigger around.


the drug wars... i don't know what to say murph. its just one more disgusting chapter in a fucked up country.


RP... your last comment on the last thread. the answer is more like 'DUH'!! i've been saying this since i started hanging out here... the will IS magnetic.

baz recon said...

Yeeesss, Satan is in control .. of the world's empires .. but, Be Al Za'bub only has as much power as we are willing to give him.

The prevalent fundamentalist beliefs—not just American, prohibit rational discussion—Kill, Kill, Kill. Temple Leaders, regardless of denomi-nation, are still Ayatollahs, Mullahs, Shahs, and Czars—a bankster by any other name.

Personal responsibility—Be responsible! Adolph Herr Hitler was a pussy, a girly-man, if you would FB. Even Arnold is queer, if you were to accept Bruno's 'facts'. Why would I declare A.H. a pussy? Why not? Every other fool hails him as some kind of mass Leader. News-Flash—He was ONLY a man. A very small deranged—fool, with a handy penchant for deceiving people. Hell, I could do that! Pretend to be a .. hmmm, well, the mind boggles—'the world is your oyster!'.

We limit ourselves with perceptions, often of course foisted upon us, by others—Why can't a girl hunt wild pigs? They can! Why does a pig hunter have to be wild, and not civilized? They fucken can! Why can't anyone, Male or Female, get in touch with their feminine consciousness—even Condoleeza Rice? OK, a stretch! FB, sure you weren't a trapper in a previous life? You know—Beavers, or some such!

Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Mein Kontrol—A.H. A talent many orators have—you've probably seen them on T.V.—Mass manipulators, who have simply noticed people wantneed, to be toldhow, to live—That is they haven't a clue themselves—duh! Hitler was nothing without the whole German nation behind him! Just a fool! Nothing more. OK, a failed artist, who couldn't sell his own works, so started forging others (deception), where he first learnt the tools of his 'trade'.

Yes, let's say, for the sake of argument, that they wanted the oil, or gas. Could have been the gold, or poppies, or women. Has been all these .. another time .. another place, another face. Times change .. every-thing changes. Nothing changes.

To the Unforgiven soldier :— If no-one else does .. forgive thy Self!

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Ayatollahs and Mullahs regard usury as a sin so I really don’t think they can be included in the bankster class. Shahs and Czars are a different thing.

Was herr Hitler a pussy? Well if we assume he had a dislike of Jews to the point of eliminating significant numbers of them (although not as many of the Jewish leaders would like to claim), then he could have included those who sired the ones who are currently diverting the course of the American nation away from the American people and their Constitution and who are culpable in atrocities against Americans, amongst others, which are far worse than those inflicted on many of their own people.

As an example of the special position which members of the Jewish nation have carved out for themselves, they are allowed to have dual American nationality so that even in high office it is ambiguous where their true allegiance lies. People originating from other nations, like Mexicans for instance are not allowed this privilege.

Yes the wheel keeps turning and comes back to the same place but just a bit further down the road.

Personally I think that both men and women should adopt the couture of wild boar skins and go around hunting those nice little pink ones. And I still think your new image is high on cute.

Anonymous said...

Dang yyummee looking "English Muffins!"

You think some of that opium $$$ is going to Wall Street keeping the stock market from totally tanking? Gotta love this "drug war" crap. U.S. soldiers getting their asses blown up to protect opium fields, Wall Street launders tons of money from the opium trade, the CIA, DEA and FBI take their cut, the courts then send thousands of drug users to profit prisons and George W. Bush, DICK! Cheney, Paul Wolfawitz, Richard Pearle, Donald Rumsfeld, Billy Christol, George Tennant, etc. are still alive and collecting big bucks.

You know, I think that's proof enough that there is no god.

Randy

baz recon said...

Aww cshucks, got me blushing now! Why Belg? Are U flirting with me?????? Look, I'll come clean—lettuce leaves included—Oh—and this is the real me!—fuh. And as for the A and M's — that's why they're sinners!

on herr pussy: All I'm trying to say, is this; (an actual email sent some time ago to a friend), in discussion regarding Hitler :-

He did win the war Charles, although not him personally--he was merely a pawn, possessed by Satan for a very little time in the dicktators albeit brief life in some trite little game of some evil-fuckin-mutha's mind!-
{Editor's Note: It's remarkable how closely America's current descent into a police state parallels that of Germany in the 1930s. The Illuminati is following the German Nazification model here in America down to the smallest detail. It's important to note that the fascists manipulating Germany from a democracy into a dictatorship in the 1930's did so by constantly bombarding their population with a fast moving stream of "crisis'" news items and staged 'crisis' events to keep the German populace bewildered and in a state of anxiety so they would not have a chance to think about and react to the unfolding political realities and collectively act to resist the fascist agenda. The same psychological manipulations are taking place in America today and producing the same results.

They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer

Click on this link,..and..digest..if you dare >

That's all. And of course the lesser, little known fact, about him being of Yiddish descent! HAh! This little-tid bit of knowledge can alter all our perceptions of what we know about reality — metaphysics etc :::

rockpicker said...

Murph,

Here's a link to an interesting piece that fits in well with your post.

http://deadmanmusings.blogspot.com/

Anybody out there read the alta report? If you haven't, you should.
It'll wither your lettuce leaves.

One thing the author mentions is a host of whistleblower activity that puts pressure on the PTB after mid-summer. I'm seeing this happen now.

Check out these websites.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4224779103128976372

And:

http://www.ae911truth.org/flashmov11.htm

One result of this economic downturn I haven't heard anyone talk about so far is the time element. Suddenly, a lot of reasonable people are finding they have time on their hands. Time to listen. Time to think. Time to go online, or hit the library. Ideas are being exchanged. Tensions are mounting. Like Brzezinsky said, "Hell, there could even be riots!"

My sense is that America is waking up. It smells rats with hidden agendas everywhere, and it's starting to get pissed. The controllers are losing their grip.

RAS said...

FA, those english muffins look yummy. Would you email me the recipe?

Drug wars *sigh* this country is so fucked up. I wish things wold change.

My sinuses finally got so bad I went to the free clinic, and guess what? Not only did I get seen, I got seen by that rarest of all things: a GOOD doctor. If I could only clone him. And put a few like him in Congress...

murph said...

Rockpicker,

America smelling a rat? Did you read the last post on surviva acres? At least some believe that rats are not being sniffed out and exterminated and it is senseless to spend time writing about it.

Dig the post from June 23, 'Mr happy goes to Argentina' on the
http://thinkorbeeaten.blogspot.com/
2009_06_01_archive.html

web site. Survival acres had a long comment on that post also that is good concerning trying to wake up people to what is happening to them.

In a way I understand why people just don't want to get too damned involved in the crookedness of the world in general. It's not only painful but would indicate that the person should be doing something around that realization instead of just living their life, such as it is. Again I will say; Until the shit starts getting into their face, most will not deal with what is not currently affecting them. Shortsighted as hell but how most people conduct their lives, in my observations.

I keep meeting people that honestly do not believe there is an energy problem, and what small problems exist will be taken care of by tweaking the economy and by throwing money at a technology fix. I still meet people that are convinced that the Bush administration was right. I still meet people that are shopping for a bigger SUV. I still meet people that politely think I am a foil hat crazy for what I see coming at us. I still meet people that don't see any problems at all except for changing the health service industry and the price of gas. Of course, from my view of the world, they are in such denial that I can hardly stand to talk to them on these subjects. That is one of the reasons why we changed the subject material somewhat on this blog. There are writers still out there talking better than I can about how messed up everything is. So I need to talk more about what to do on a personal level. Not so much of that going on yet. When more writers spend time on what to do to get ready for the SHTF scene, I don't know what is left to talk about.

I do suspect that within the next year, there is going to be a concerted effort to close down sections of the internet, particularly bloggers that are critical of the situation. An opening salvo on that issue was recently put out there by Murdock I think it was, wanting to close down bloggers because they don't have the same standard as media news. See this site;
http://www.infowars.com/
murdoch-ceo-labels-bloggers-
political-extremists/

If you put into your search engine, 'closing down blogs', you will find a bunch of people closing down their sites for a variety of reasons. Let's also admit that there is a lot of really extremist stuff going on in the blogging world, even by my standards. Some of it sure impresses me as misinformation or outright fantasy.

In any event, we are probably going to see some kind of resolution in the world wide class warfare coming pretty soon. Maybe a couple of years, maybe sooner. In the meantime, I am convinced that it is going to get pretty hairy out there in the real world and one better start getting ready for it.

Anonymous said...

Toward the end of the last post's comments, Rockpicker asked if I'd read the food bill that sounds like Monsanto wrote it. I haven't answered because if I get started on Monsanto I can rant almost as good as freeacre. I believe they are criminal in their actions, especially when they know the really serious problems they have caused and they know that their methods rely on a theory that was disproven long ago.

So, no, I have not read the bill. I have read about it and have read the comment from a Monsanto rep that, oh, no, they are not writing the bill, but it was worded so vaguely that it was not credible. Of course, they are.

You know that organic and other family farms are badly hindered by the farm bills that go thru. I don't suppose this will be any different, only maybe worse.

Since the farmers around here are dependent on the financial support from the farm bills, I don't see any way to get them to argue against the farm bills as written and turn them into organic, sustainable farmers.

So the only thing I can think to do is what Michael Pollan suggests, eat organic food grown within 100 miles, and don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize.

I read a criticism of that that said they couldn't grow enough food locally because of winter. The fact that people have for thousands of years completely escaped her.

I'll quit -- I feel a rant coming on.

I just found five ripe tomatoes hiding in one of my plants ! And I had gotten my yard almost cleaned up when I decided to rebuild my other planter, so it's a mess again. But the old one looked even worse next to the new one, and I couldn't stand it any longer. Ah, well. It keeps me out of trouble.

Caroline

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Baz, Well we finally got round to agreeing with each other.

For everyone else who was curious to what was going on, Baz learned from another site that I had downloaded an e-book of Mein Kampf and assumed that I was an apologist for Hitler but not so. It was a case of knowing your enemy and history repeating itself. I heard that Field Marshal Montgomery had a picture of Rommel in his personal tent in North Africa and he used to look it in the eye and say “If I do this, wtf will you do next”. He reckoned it helped him to work out his plan but it did not make him a Nazi lover. So far as the book goes I read Chapter 10 which is why I downloaded it then read the first couple of chapters before something more interesting was put under my nose. So far as I got, you can certainly see where Hitler was coming from before he started riding the power surge and went off the rails. At that time Germany was divided. There was the main chunk and a separate bit which the mainly Austrian Habsburgs had snaffled. These Germans were treated shabbily and had to fight to retain their language. Hitler was fervently nationalistic and wanted to reunify both parts. Also the German military and citizenry had disarmed after WWl according to the conditions of the treaty of Versailles. France then made a grab for the Rhur with the intention of dividing Europe north and south from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. Eventually the French were thrown out but that is where Hitler’s sense of nationalism began. That is as far as I have got but my purpose in starting the book was to see if there were any parallels with the situation then and what is happening now in the US and to a lesser extent Europe.

Well I hope that has cleared that one up.

freeacre said...

Sorry for the delay, but we've been having a good time enjoying the company of Dave, who came to visit a couple of days ago. Took him for a little tour of the lava fields today. Brie wants to be his girlfriend.

I thought I'd put the recipe for the English muffins on the site, in case a few of you might want to try it:

Put all this into a bread machine and set it on the dough setting:

1 1/2 cups fat free milk (I used 2%)(warmed up)
2 Tbl. melted butter
1 lrg. egg, slightly beaten

4 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 3/4 teas. bread machine yeast

After raising, the machine will beep. Cut the dough in half and sprinkle a little corn meal on a board. Roll out half the dough to about 1/2 " thick. Take a 3" cookie cutter or a glass and cut out rounds. Put them on a lightly greased electric griddle set to 350-375 or in a lightly greased cast iron pan on medium heat. Don't get it too hot, or the muffins will burn before they are cooked through. Cook ten minutes on a side. Then cut and fry the other half of the loaf. The softer the dough, the lighter the muffins will be. Toast and serve with butter and honey or jam, or whatever. Enjoy!

baz recon said...

Ohhh, I wouldn't be too sure about that! I argue with myself all the time, and win! No-one else is interested .. I never ass-umed apologist? for Hitler! I perhaps wrongly thought (quietly) you might be his english grandson, is all—apologies if not. But .. we can still, be friends—can't we?

Yes, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it” ~ Santayana, is written on a sign at the former Dachau concentration camp memorial, but probably made more famous swinging in the breeze at Jonestown—Guyana on 'White Night' in 1978, where Jones's (his glazed eyes and festering paranoia—to encourage them to drink the poison) brainwashed 912 followers were given a deadly concoction of a purple drink mixed with cyanide, sedatives, and tranquilizers.

—to realize that nearly a thousand lives, ours included, were in his hands. And in light of oft-repeated follies in modern times—an unspoken Law.

I had a picture in my tent of Farrah Fawcett. Helped me overcome my fear of hippies—but in no way endeared me to Charlie's Angels.

I think the revived Roman Empire with all its replete reverence for "gods" amongst us, is still inculcated within us—even encoded! There is an appalling dependency to over-estimate fools, as if they were somehow supposed to be more important than the rest of us. That's what they want us to think. Their salaries depend on it!

Otherwise we wouldn't rush-off half-assed, risking life and limb, to fight for some barely-understood cause .. of some indeterminate worth of Who knows what! This is the real 'opiate', not some flower!

Anonymous said...

Hey guys and gals,

-this is good.

http://thinkorbeeaten.blogspot.com/

Randy

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

We sure can and who knows maybe I am in another dissociated identity.
Santayana, yes but most who have been through the modern education system never knew the past to begin with.

God gave FF the looks but played her short on the acting talent.

Fools must pretend to be wise
With a faith that they use as a heavy disguise.
(Strawbs)

“Just want to serve my country Sir” but no one told them who it was they were serving in their country and they never thought to ask.

Anyway Baz, nicely navigated back to opium, we should give the post a greater degree of attention.

freeacre said...

Thanks for that link to Think or Be Eaten, Randy. What a great (if very lengthy) essay. I added her site to our list of favorites.