XPost: alt.mexico, alt.movies   
   From: pub?@?li.us   
      
   On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 17:52:04 GMT, Al Smith  wrote:   
      
   >> Did you know that the Mayan Calendar ends the LONG Count in 2012.   
   >> It ends local time (Mexico) on the 21st, and at the dateline on the 22nd.   
   >   
   >   
   >Oh, yeah, yeah, Mayan Calendar, very complex, big deal. Maybe they   
   >invented a ritual way of trimming their toenails that takes twelve   
   >hours, also. They still ate people.   
      
      
   As did nearly all peoples if you go back far enough...so what?   
      
   The simple reality is this did not and does not define a people.   
      
   Some times such things are told of the past, with stories of progress and   
   change.  It is   
   said that some Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] people also ate men.  But when the   
   Peacemaker   
   came, he taught to abandon this practice.   
      
   After his words were accepted, the people changed and went on to develop one   
   of the most   
   admirable systems of governance and way of living the earth has ever known.   
      
   'Everything runs smoothly without soldiers, gendarmes, or police, without   
   nobles, kings,   
   governors, prefects or judges; without prisons, without trials. All quarrels   
   and disputes   
   are settled by the whole body of those concerned....' --Lewis Henry Morgan re   
   the Iroquois   
   culture in 'Ancient Society' [1877]   
      
   This system impressed Ben Franklin so much, he chided the European immigrants   
   to model   
   there government by it with this 'back-handed' compliment:   
   "It would be a very strange thing if Six Nations of Ignorant Savages should be   
   capable of   
   forming a Scheme for such an Union and be able to execute it in such a manner,   
   as that it   
   has subsisted Ages, and appears indissoluble, and yet a like union should be   
   impracticable   
   for ten or a dozen English colonies."   
      
   You can be thankful that the USA, Canada and most current European states have   
   since   
   incorporated SOME of the concepts learned from the Haudenosaunee Great Law of   
   Peace.  The   
   pitiful political condition we suffer with is only evidence that they missed   
   the point and   
   didn't adopt enough of the Haudenosaunee way, which demands power to the   
   people, not the   
   'leaders'.  Their 'leaders' are not "deciders" [dictators] like Bush is wont   
   to claim as   
   his right.  They are spokesmen, representatives of the will of the people who   
   lead by   
   obeying, obeying the people.   
      
   'That, on the principle of a communion of property, small societies may exist   
   in habits of   
   virtue, order, industry, and peace, and consequently in a state of as much   
   happiness as   
   Heaven has been pleased to deal out to imperfect humanity, I can readily   
   conceive, and   
   indeed, have seen its proofs in various small societies which have been   
   constituted on   
   that principle.'-Thomas Jefferson [1822]   
      
   This excerpt from their Great Law indicates the new personality after the   
   Peacemaker came:   
      
   "The Statesmen of the Confederacy shall eat together from one bowl the feast   
   of cooked   
   beaver's tail.  While they are eating they are to use no sharp utensils for if   
   they should   
   they might accidentally cut one another and bloodshed would follow.  All   
   measures must be   
   taken to prevent the spilling of blood in any way."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)