The totem gene is part of all of us. It is the reason for prejudice. It
makes our heart beat fast when the flag goes by. It is why the Crips wear
blue and the Bloods wear red. It is the Union Jack, Old Glory, The Rising
Sun, and the Swastika. It is the Cross of David and the Scimitar. It is the
K.K.K. and the Reverend Farrakhan. It evolved in the dark ages of
prehistory. Without it war would be impossible. It is the reason white
collars wear ties, and blue collar workers wear blue. It is not only a
property of the Somalian tribal warrior, but it is the little blue beret of
the United Nations. It lurks in our subconscious telling the liberal that
his daughter is not going to marry one of them. It is the logo on the
corporation stationary, and the trade mark on a toy. It's N.B.C., C.B.S.,
and A.B.C.. A duality like everything else; nature created totemism to allow
an altruistic social being to kill one of his own kind.

Without our brothers and sisters we would be lost in the jungle. We need
each other. We like parties because there are people there. We go to bars
and drink to let down our guard and relate to the others. The worst
punishment the tribe could inflict was ostracism. The most feared punishment
in prison is solitary confinement. The word "Rap," meaning to communicate
and now an art form, had it's origin in penitentiaries. To combat the
terrible silence of solitary confinement fellow convicts would rap on the
pipes. They used a code similar to Morse that was probably used before the
wireless was invented. To emphasize his dislike for someone a convicts worst
condemnation was "I won't rap to him!" People alone go crazy alone. The life
of the frontier evolved around saloons and churches. Man needs company.

There is no love greater than that of a combat soldier for his buddies.
Hugging and butt patting and the high-five show the love athletes have for
their team-mates. Some ex-convicts cannot stand the free world. They are
lone tribesmen in the camp of the enemy. Many with excellent prospects
cannot face a future with strangers and will compulsively do some terrible
thing just to get back with their fellow tribesmen in the penitentiary. The
totem gene is the main cause for recidivism.

War paint and feathers, boars tusks and colors, flags and anthems are the
totemic paraphernalia of patriotism. Totemism is genetic. It is always there
in our subconscious waiting to be aroused by the demagogue. The defense
against this gene is also in the subconscious. It is the altruistic gene
that can be activated by a message of brotherhood.

All large carnivores are territorial. The human tribe functioned in the
ecology like any other large meat eater. National and inter-regional borders
activate the totem gene. The Border Patrol is doing the same thing a dog or
any other carnivore will do. It pisses around it's territory, warning off
any would be intruder. The conflict in Yugoslavia took place because
Yugoslavia was re-partitioned into three parts . . . Serbia, Bosnia, and
Croatia. During the tenure of Tito the territorial boundaries of these
ancient enemies were nonexistent and Yugoslavia was integrating them. The
terrible error of re-dividing them is directly responsible for the hell that
is Yugoslavia today. This is a result of realpolitik that wanted to weaken
what could be a potential enemy.

Our real-politicians are not so gleeful today about the success of returning
Russia and the Baltic back to the tribal past. Tribal warfare is becoming a
genuine danger to the rest of the world,. The genetic nature of Man must be
a consideration in our planning for him,. The re-creation of warrior tribes,
does not fit well with the political needs of what has become a small
planet. In planning any approach to a problem dealing with human beings
their nature must be considered. The activities of the C.I.A. in
disestablishing a legitimate government in Iran and giving power to the
puppet Shah Pahvlevi was short sighted, and proved to be disastrous. This
attempt to Americanize a Moslem population kicked back in our face. The
obvious immorality of it was justified by the short term thinking
characteristic of American commercial interests. In the long run it was not
even practical. American commercial interests would be better served by a
recognition of the tribal nature of human beings.

The open hand of brotherhood to all peoples is a much more practical way to
conduct international affairs. Ignoring the patriotic tribal feelings of
populations in an effort to take over a market, (particularly an
agricultural market) can lead to more conflict and confusion. It would
behoove our statesmen to walk carefully in the mine field of tribal
consciousness. The direct process of opening our own doors in the NAFTA and
GATT negotiations is going to run into a wall of opposition from the
American tribe. It is an example of a government that considers only the
desires of the jungle and ignores the needs of its tribesmen. The tagging on
of side-agreements as a concession to the environment and worker tribesman
is seen as only a reaction to gain popular support for an unpopular program.
All major decisions must be made with the recognition that the government is
the property of the tribe. To make it an arm of the jungle is to eliminate
it as it was created and open the door to a new form of tribal leadership.

In the primitive tribe cheiftanship was an honorary thing. There were no
bosses and instead of laws people closed their dealings with a handshake.
This of course is not possible in modern business. Government means
governing or mandating. The very word carries with it the idea of someone
driving a team. Government is a tribal council that has become meshed with
the jungle of business. Elected by the tribes-people it does the bidding of
business. The fix is in for the corporations and the role of the politician
is to throw sand in our eyes.

I have nothing against capitalists. Without capitalists we would all starve.
Mexico and South America and Africa do not need more generals, they need
more capitalists. Let the capitalist go. Just do not let him run your tribe.
If the jungle of commerce pollutes, or treats our tribes-people badly, they
will hear from us. Do not even tax them. Rent them those natural resources
that belong to the tribe alone. I do think that capitalists should be
individuals and cooperatives. The new capitalist should earn his money by
investing in bond issues for a particular project. Investors who’s only
interest in a corporation is whether its stock goes up or down should have
their illegal stock certificates replaced with bonds. The corporation is the
only organization in the world that can raise money by issuing stock. Stock
shares are ownership that has been alienated from the organization. This
turns the corporation into a robot--a Golem with the letters spelling greed
on his forehead.

 The Stars and Stripes is our totem. Those are stars on that flag . . . not
dollar signs! The new technology of pinpoint satellite location developed by
the military with taxpayer money can drop a missile with perfect accuracy.
You saw it on television broadcasts of the Gulf War. The downsizing of
defense allowed this miracle of technology to be handed to the private
sector and now has been proliferated to all parts of the world. A terrorist
or an irresponsible third world country now can have the American people in
their gun-sights. This has been allowed to happen because profits are the
only consideration of commerce. As Lenin once said, "a capitalist will sell
you the rope that you are going to hang him with." I can think of no better
example of the dangers inherent in a government that is penetrated with
business interests.

This is no isolated incident. The whole panoply of misery that is affecting
the United States can be attributed to this diabolic mixture of tribal
interests with commercial interests in our government. Do I advocate the
overthrow of the government? The answer depends on whether or not an aroused
populace can eliminate this cancer by their power of the ballot. If not . .
. Why not? One of the better concealed opinions of Thomas Jefferson was that
"The blood of revolutionaries waters the tree of liberty." If Korea or China
or Khadafi decide to aim their rockets at us using our own technology to
make sure they do not miss . . . it will be a moot question.

The jungle penetration of our government is not a new product of the cold
war. The civil war was fought because Black slavery was a threat to the
wage-slavery favored by Northern industry. This happened to coincide with
the humanity of the abolitionists who represented the social side. If a
government is only an arm of the jungle then it must be done away with. I
believe the tribal interest in government has become compromised by money
power. Certainly the people are heard in Washington. The voters have shown
power in anti-trust legislation and the elimination of D.D.T. as an
insecticide.

The sensible thing would be for the doyens of Wall Street themselves to
initiate their departure. They have private methods of regulating their
affairs. If they do not see the mini-mini-tekel upharsen on the wall they
are playing with their own future. It would be a tragedy to overturn and
destroy both the tribal council and the jungle but this could happen if they
do not use their famous common sense to prepare for the future. A population
will not support chaos forever. The lions of business, thriving on
competition, are shortsighted. They want to see the "bottom line." The
bottom line is anarchy.

Totemism was a necessity for Man to evolve. It provided the mechanism to
make tribal warfare possible . . . an ecological necessity at this point.
Warfare in the Pleistocene kept the population in balance with the holding
capacity of the environment. It lost its effectiveness at the birth of
agriculture. Still the warrior totem gene remains like the appendix and
other useless body parts. War and its totems are of no value to modern Man.
They do not serve as a brake on population when Baby Boomers soon make up
for combat losses. Advancing technology by means of war has lost its appeal
as modern war technology poses a threat to nature herself.

If you think outer space will accommodate our excess population listen to
what Ehrlich, Ehrlich and Holdren have to say in their text "Human Ecology,"

"Horrendous figures may be generated by projecting the present rate of human
population growth worldwide into the future. After all, the doubling time
for that population is now only about thirty five years. If growth continued
at that rate the world population would exceed a billion, billion people
only one thousand years from now. That would be some one thousand seven
hundred persons per square yard of the Earth's surface, land and sea! Even
more preposterous illustrations can be made. In a few thousand more years,
everything in the visible universe would be converted into people, and the
diameter of the ball of people would be expanding with the speed of light.

It was technology that got us into this mess and only technology will get us
out of it. Technology will provide the answer with biological engineering.
Let us hope that it is not too late! We can do without the totem gene, its
elimination would produce a millennium only imagined by science fiction. In
the interim, an awareness of this phenomena would help solve our day to day
social and international problems.

The rapid increase in individualistic and group outlaw behavior presages
serious trouble for the world-tribe. It is caused by the de-tribalization of
people by the entry of the jungle into the tribal kraal. Technology and its
accompanying economy based on greed, dissolves traditional social
organizations and turns loving tribesmen into murderers. It also forces
tribal leaders to become cynical jungle cats stalking their own electorate.
Market forces should not be allowed to dominate tribal organization. Anarchy
awaits!

The "war on crime" is a punitive attempt to stem what is really anarchy.
Religious leaders see it as a moral breakdown that can be repaired by the
introduction of religion into education. The problem of this is "What
religion?" Early in our history we were diversified into many dogmatic
religions. The separation of Church and State was not a secular attack on
religion. It was an exercise in dualism to isolate two separate human needs.
Its aim was to preserve religion by keeping the various sects from cutting
each others throats. A state religion, like Israel's or Iran's would
definitely provide the necessary totemic unity for the nation if it were
possible to eliminate all of the other religions. This is neither desirable
nor possible.

Scandals in high places are becoming commonplace. "Criminal" or anarchistic
behavior is not the sole characteristic of the lower classes. Packwood,
Rostenkowski, and the purveyors of violent theater should be the first
targets of the war on crime. A cursory investigation would reveal many more
high placed wrongdoers. We have a cynical government and a cynical
population. How is one to teach his child to be honest, when his president
is less than candid? Deviant and wanton terror is common. This mornings
paper had a small article about an elderly woman who picked up a flashlight
left on her porch. It turned out to be a sophisticated bomb that could have
blown up her and her house. I have a bullet hole in my mail box from a
drive-by shooter who shot up my son's pickup, and we do not live in a
ghetto. It is not just gangs and dope it is Man without a totem . . .
de-tribalized Man . . . reverting to lone-carnivore, like a rogue elephant .
. . killing everything in sight.

There is little doubt that population control is going to have to assume a
prominent place on the international agenda. Maybe you are thinking . . .
"This crazy old red is like the Chinese. He wants us to stop having
children. Not so! I love children but you just saw the statistics . . . In
time even the Pope will have to see the light. We see the "one world" of
Wendel Wilkie as a nightmare of warrior tribes roaming an economic jungle.
Anarchy is a precondition for revolution. The Marxist idea that ideas would
cause revolution was mistaken. Revolution is well under way before the
idealogue shows up to take charge. Lenin arrived in a boxcar from Germany
after the masses had occupied the Kremlin. Our present leaders are no more
prescient than were the Romanovs. They will be holding caucuses when the mob
breaks down the doors.

The totem gene in the masses will accept any totem offered by a demagogue if
they are in fear of anarchy. The formulation by Stalin in his work on "The
National Question," is one of the most scientific works in Marxist
literature. It describes a nation as having five characteristics. lf any
group does not possess these it is not a nation. One is a contiguous
territory. Two is a common language. Three a common religion. Four a common
history of repression, and five a common economic life. This is also a
definition of a tribe. Nations are only overgrown tribes afflicted with
state power. A nation can exist without a government. It is a body of people
united. A government is expendable, but the tribe lives on. Sergei Dimitrov
at the Congress of the Communist International defined Fascism as "The open
terroristic rule of the most chauvinist and reactionary sections of finance
capital." Actually Fascism was the domination of the Tribal State by the
Tribal Warrior who was financed by the capitalists because of fear of
Communism. Once a government has lost its authenticity in the eyes of the
people it will never recover. The American government has the structural
validity to deal with the future. There would be little wrong with the
government if it returned to its beginnings as a people's government. Health
care in the United States is an unfunny joke. An eighteen year old neighbor
girl who is the picture of health was given a Cesarean so the medical
providers could double their profit on the deal although she had no
abnormality that made this drastic procedure neccesary. There is talk of a
Clinton plan but any plan that does not evict the insurance carnivore as
guardian of American health is doomed to failure. Malpractice litigation is
the only protection the public has. Tort reform, the answer of the
Republicans to health care costs would take this away. The high cost of
health care is not caused by lawyers but by doctors and hospitals and the
insurance system that allows them to steal. Ross Perot likes our medical
system because he can buy a hospital if he wants one. Beverly, our young
neighbor had no choice. The number of people who can choose their providers
with prudence is limited to those who play golf with doctors. Everyone else
chooses them from the yellow pages of the phone book . . . So much for choice.

The republicans have taken over both houses of Congress under the leadership
of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. They have what they call a "Contract with
America" Recognizing that it is common knowledge that the deficit and the
debt of the United States is bleeding the country to death they are starting
with the poorest of the poor to try and stem the flow. Soon they will move
on to Social Security and the patchwork health assistance that the
government now provides to a large body of aware seniors. They will keep
this up until a revolt takes place.

The ship of state has two gigantic holes in it. One is the military
industrial complex that is still building nuclear submarines and new fighter
planes when we already have the most powerful military that has ever
existed. The Republican contract wants to increase spending in this area.
The other hole is that Medi-care and Medicaid is dispersed by private
insurance companies who have no interest in containing costs because
taxpayer money is involved. Last month, on a Sunday, I had pains in my chest
and went to the emergency room of the hospital. They checked me on the
electro-cardiac machine and found that nothing was wrong with my heart.
Finally I was diagnosed with pneumonia. They put me in a room that doubled
as a storage area with an I.V. of broad spectrum antibiotics. In the morning
I felt better and demanded to be let out. I took the same antibiotics in
pill form for the next week and was cured. When the bill came from the
hospital I was not suprised that they had billed the government for five
thousand dollars and that they wanted another thousand from me.

One does not have to be an economist to figure out that if this is standard
operating procedure . . . the government is soon going to be broke. For six
thousand dollars I could fly to Singapore and spend a few nights in the
Singapore Hilton with room service. With all the serious faced experts on
C-Span trying to make a case that cutting sixty years of social programs is
going to remedy the debt, I have to conclude that they are either totally
insane or have an interest in not rocking the sinking boat. The liberals
want to plug up one hole by reforming the medical system by carefully
avoiding any mention of "The Canadian System". The conservatives want to
throw the majority of the boats occupants over the side. Neither mention the
military industrial complex that destroyed Russia and will destroy us.

No one is fooling anyone. My experience is not unique and almost all of us
in the "great unwashed" are aware of what is going on in spite of all the
smoke and mirrors. The Republicans are accustomed to being rejected in the
political arena. The Democrats are now experiencing the same phenomena. If
they persist in their intransigence they will most certainly face a third
political force in this country that will reject both of them. Right now the
left under the leadership of the Rainbow Coalition and Jesse Jackson is
cohering. If they cut out all of the other nonsense in their agenda and
voice what everyone already knows by concentrating on the enormous robbery
that is taking place against the American people they will most certainly
win the day.

The Republicans won in California by scapegoating the illegal immigrants.
They won nationally by scapegoating welfare mothers. They are using the
totem-gene. This makes possible their selecting an imaginary enemy and
dehumanizing it. One might ask "where is this totem gene? Who has ever seen
one? The answer is no one has ever seen a quark but we know it exists. The
evidence for a totem gene is just as compelling as is the evidence for a
sub-atomic particle. It developed during the millions of years as the
organizing force for tribal life and it still exists in all of us. It would
behoove all of us to start thinking with our heads and not with our totem genes.