Dive Conquer, Rule
Divide, Conquer, Rule
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Today’s
ruling elites are extremely adroit at using an old strategy called “divide and
conquer” or “divide and rule” to maintain their domination and advantage over
the masses. This strategy was implemented in modern times by the British who
used it effectively to maintain their global empire by fomenting discord
amongst various ethnic, religious or resistance groups, to keep them fighting
amongst themselves thus rendering them unable to unify, marshal or galvanize
their resources against their colonial oppressors.
Today the
plutocrats use their ownership and control of media programming, government,
indoctrination (education and religion), state sanctioned violence and
intimidation to create and maintain their domination of the world. Their two
pronged strategy is to: create psychological, socio-economic, racial and ethnic
conflict, division and enmity so their subordinates are so preoccupied trying
to win arguments, promoting ideologies the 1% had a hand in creating or using hot
button issues the elites know will distract, consume and derail any
possibilities of insurgence, resistance or revolution against them.
We are
witnessing this today in the red state blue state division, the left-right
dichotomy, the progressive-conservative schism and the generational and class
“culture wars” that dominate conversations and foster bunker and silo
mentalities. We see it in the gender wars, (a reaction to oligarchic male
patriarchal power) and identity politics. This is all by design and very
deliberate. It is being purposefully exacerbated by the mainstream media which
is owned lock, stock and barrel by the 1%.
In the US,
divide and rule goes back to colonial times when the monarchs’ and monopoly
trading company (the forerunners of today’s corporations) surrogates withstood rebellions
by white bond servants and enslaved Africans (and in isolated cases Native
Americans) against the colonial administrators.
Actual rebellions occurred in
places like Gloucester County Virginia
in 1663, Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1676
and a rumored revolt by whites and blacks in New York City in 1774. While the issues that sparked the rebellions
differed by location, the common thread was they united the lower classes
against the colonial rulers because of the way the authorities treated them and
because of their system of governance.
The response by the status quo was
swift, violent and vicious. Any suspected leaders were captured and killed,
their mutilated bodies were allowed to fester and rot as public examples; while
others were expelled and sent to different colonies.
But these rebellions put fear in the hearts
and minds of the colonial administrators. The colonial 1% feared for their
lives, property and status. They could not allow the rabble to take control or
exert authority lest their profits and status be diminished. So they devised means
to prevent European, African and Native American unity, their solution was,
divide and rule.
The British colonizers used the
concept of race as the medium to prevent poor whites, who were little more than
slaves themselves, from uniting with the Africans and where possible Native
Americans. The colonial legislators passed laws consigning Africans to
permanent slavery and “the other” status. These laws kept Africans on the
bottom of the socio-economic ladder while the Europeans waged relentless wars
of extermination and land expropriation against the indigenous population.
The colonial administrators and
legislators granted poor white males a modicum of status by recognizing them as
“white” (meaning acceptable) and if the were able to secure property they could
gain respectability in the eyes of the colonial gentry and administrators.
Of course in return, white males were mandated
to participate in the defense of the colony by being part of regular militia
duty and slave patrols to make sure no enslaved Africans escaped or congregated
without supervision or a pass and as canon fodder in European intercolonial
wars and extermination campaigns against the Native Americans.
With the transition from an
agrarian to a mixed agrarian- industrial then mechanized industrial economy,
the ruling class violently resisted all organizing attempts by farmers, miners
and factory workers. The owners and their government allies worked assiduously
to stamp out all forms of unified, organized labor.
When that failed, ownership begrudgingly granted
concessions to various unions but used racial and gender division to prevent
organized labor from being a universal counterweight to unbridled capitalistic
exploitation.
This arrangement still exists today. The
ruling elites create rigid class stratification but cunningly promote the perception
anyone can move up, out and improve their lot, despite the fact today’s wealth
inequality is almost as bad as it was in the 1920’s and prospects for social
elevation are declining rapidly.
The fact is the deliberate
deindustrialization, the off shoring of capital and jobs and the ruling class’
financial policies have created massive debt peonage, wage stagnation and
disaffectedness. The increase of immerging technologies that are replacing
workers are making the “American Dream” just that, a fruitless fantasy.
A sense of anomie is permeating
this culture. This is why the frustration and depression levels are so high and
addictions and suicide are on the rise. This is why people fall for slogans and
political sound bytes like “Hope and Change” and “Make America Great Again”,
they know they are being squeezed, they see their wages, savings and lifestyles
dissipating before their eyes and they want genuine relief. But the system is not designed to provide
justice or relief, only profits.
The fact is, any attempts to resist
other than the prescribed channel of voting (which in itself is a form of
divide and rule) will be co-opted just like the original Tea Party or smashed
by the state like The Occupy Wall Street movement. Unless we are willing to
raise our consciousness, unite and truly challenge the 1% things will only get
worse.
-30-
Fiscal Insanity
Fiscal Insanity
Junious Ricardo Stanton
“For the month of January, the Treasury
reported a budget surplus of $9 billion, down $41 billion or 82% from the same
month a year ago… The widening deficit comes as
the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a shortfall of $897 billion for
the full fiscal year, or 4.2% of gross domestic product. That’s up from $779
billion in fiscal 2018, when spending climbed and revenue remained nearly flat.
The CBO sees trillion-dollar deficits beginning in fiscal 2022.” https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-runs-january-budget-surplus-of-9-billion-2019-03-05?mod=economic-report
When
Trump and the Republicans were selling their supply side tax cut snake oil, I
did some research to determine whether or not tax cuts actually spurred
economic growth and boosted the economy. I discovered they did/do not. I went all
the way back to 1920 and discovered that only in a short seven year period from
1920 to 1927 in the administrations of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge
did a fiscal policy of austerity actually produce the desired results.
Despite
taking office during a depression in 1920 (https://fee.org/articles/the-depression-youve-never-heard-of-1920-1921/),
Warren Harding following the advice of his Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon,
cut taxes, cut government spending targeted paying down the national debt and
actually generated a three hundred million dollar surplus! Harding died in
office in 1923 (there was no autopsy; he was embalmed within hours of his death
so no one knows what he died from). His Vice President Calvin Coolidge assumed
office and continued Harding’s policies.
Coolidge
declined to run again in 1928 and a recession occurred in the final months of
his administration that eventually morphed into the Great Depression once
Herbert Hoover took office. Various schools of economic theory debate and argue
over why Harding and Coolidge were able to resolve the 192-21 depression
without using accepted “modern” interventions like increased government
spending or inflationary monetary policy.
What
these economists ignore is the basic approach Harding and Coolidge took to the
economy which was: don’t spend more than you take in in revenue, live on a
balanced budget and pay off your debts. They cut taxes, cut spending and paid
down the debt. Their actions along with new technologies, spurred economic
growth during the era known as the “Roaring Twenties”.
Despite
these policies, when Hoover
assumed office in 1929 the recession was worsening. He doubled down on
Harding and Coolidge’s policies but they didn’t work for him. Hoover
had always an interventionist. In Harding’s diary he noted Hoover who was his Secretary of Commerce was
always coming to him with one idea after another about how to deal with the
depression. Hoover’s
ideas were more interventionist than either Harding or Coolidge’s.
Ironically
one of the justifications for creating the Federal Reserve Bank (it’s not a
government entity at all, it’s a group of privately owned banks) was it would
end the relentless cycles of boom, bust, prosperity, recession and depression.
However, history has shown this not to be true.
Since
the 1929 Great Depression all Presidents even so called “conservatives” like
Ronald Reagan have eschewed the holistic policies of Harding and Coolidge: tax
cuts, spending cuts, paying down the debt and accountability (Harding created
the General Accounting Office to audit government spending) in favor of either
tax cuts or spending cuts done separately and randomly rather than in tandem.
Of course in 1921 there were no gargantuan New Deal Programs or Military
Industrial Complex to pay for like today.
Today
a charlatan like Donald Trump hoodwinks the people by telling them tax cuts
will stimulate the economy while he simultaneously increases government
spending (granted some government spending was for wildfires, floods and
hurricane relief) in addition to initiating a boneheaded trade war around the
world.
But Trump is not the only president to do this,
all of his immediate predecessors even the ones who raised taxes like Bu$h
Senior and Clinton have spent more than the government took in. Presidents Bu$h Jr. and Obama both cut taxes
(Obama extended Bu$h’s tax cuts), but simultaneously increased spending. By
doing so, they increased the federal deficit. Ronald Reagan did the same thing
although the media perpetrates the lie his tax cuts stimulated the economy
which they did not!
The United States is in a deep fiscal hole.
It spends far more than it takes in. Trump’s tax cuts and spending spikes increased
the federal deficit over $700 billion dollars in 2018 and is projected to
increase the deficit by $879 billion in 2019! This is insane.
Even though the Federal Reserve
Bank and US Treasury can theoretically continue to create and print money via
computer strokes, that policy is unsustainable over the long haul. Even the IMF
says so.
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2018/10/imf-raises-concerns-for-fiscal-stability-of-the-united-states.
This coupled with the escalating economic slowdown we are now experiencing https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/u-s-job-cut-announcements-rise-117-percent-to-the-highest-level-that-we-have-seen-in-more-than-3-years/
things do not bode well for us.
Insanity is defined as, doing the
same thing over and over with the same people, expecting different results. By that
reckoning we truly are insane.
-30-
Gaslighting America
Gaslighting America
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
We are constantly being manipulated, coerced, cajoled and
programmed both on subtle and obvious levels. The manipulators’ goal is to
control our minds and ultimately our behavior. One such form of manipulation is
called gaslighting. Gaslighting is a
form of direct manipulation, obfuscation and lies designed to make the target (the
person being manipulated) question their sanity, their reality or their
competency.
Gaslighting gets its name from two American motion pictures
an original and a remake in which the male character who is having an
extramarital affair tries to make his wife think she’s crazy for suspecting he
is being unfaithful to her.
Gaslighting is a power
play, a way for one person or group to gain and maintain power over others. In
the United States
we are gaslighted on a daily basis by individuals and institutions such as: religions,
our education systems, the mass media and politicians. There are numerous ways,
means and techniques devious people use to control, disorient and disarm people
they want to have power over.
One technique is to
tell blatant lies and then make you think you are insane for questioning or disbelieving
them. The ruling glass and their minions lie to us daily. When the ruling class
decides (they are not a monolithic group but they do cooperate to accomplish
their goals) they want to bum rush a country and steal their natural resources
they demonize that nation’s leader to gain public acquiescence and consent for
their actions.
Remember how the US demonized and lied about Saddam
Hussein and his non-existent weapons of mass destruction? Weapons inspectors
told the world Saddam did not have nuclear weapons nor the capability to
manufacture them but the US
government gaslighted the masses against United Nations weapons inspector Scott
Ritter and Hans Blinx the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who
steadfastly stated Iraq
had no WMDs; which in fact was the truth. Nevertheless Bu$h and Co.’s
gaslighting set the stage for a blatant, immoral and illegal invasion of Iraq
and a series of crimes against humanity that have thus far gone unpunished.
Gaslighting also occurs when a person, group or nation’s
actions don’t match their creed or purported values. The United States
purports to be the “exceptional and indispensible nation” but for most if not
all of its history exploitation, oppression, systemic violence and trauma have
been its real way of life and MO.
Don’t fall for the okey-doke. We are being gaslighted about
the economy; Trump tells us the economy is strong and growing. Yes, for a select
few. But for far too many of us, the economy is not rebounding and there are growing
indications a major readjustment coming. This readjustment is being fueled by
technological innovation, corporate and government mismanagement, greed and
apathy on our part.
Major retail organizations are closing their stores because
they cannot compete with Online commerce giants like Amazon and eBay and
because people don’t have money to buy their goods. Last week it was announced GAP, JC Penny, Macy’s,
Victoria’s
Secret, Foot Locker, Payless Shoes are closing stores and some are filing for
bankruptcy. Over four thousand stores will close in 2019! https://www.businessinsider.com/stores-closing-in-2019-list-2019-3
US auto sales fell in 2018 and
remain slow in 2019 yet Trump and the cable news and business channels tell us
the economy is fine! http://fortune.com/2019/03/01/auto-car-sales-decline-jeep-ford-toyota-honda-nissan/
More gaslighting!
Trump’s trade wars have negatively impacted the US economy but
you won’t hear that in the corporate mind control apparatus. His trade war with China has severely hurt US farmers https://www.ft.com/content/93a21e84-0f55-11e9-a3aa-118c761d2745
farm bankruptcies are on the rise but Trump says things are great. More
gaslighting!
Don’t fall for the okey-doke think for yourself and have the
courage of your convictions.
-30-
African Genius
African Genius
Junious Ricardo Stanton
The past
few weeks I have shared information about the accomplishments of Africans that
go unrecognized and overlooked due to a deliberate movement to suppress, obfuscate
and ignore African history. We spoke about early boat building, navigation of
the rivers and lakes in African and later circumnavigating the world by
Africans.
Celebrating African and Black history during
the shortest month of the years is counterproductive even though we need the
exposure. We should celebrate African history all year long, daily because it
is human history.
Let’s look
at the things we take for granted that were begun, invented and developed by
our aboriginal African ancestors. Africans developed the concept of family as a
social as well as a biological unit. It formed the basis of social organization
and culture. Africans recognized the importance of blood connections and used
those blood connection what we call families as the core foundation of their
group, tribe, clan and society.
While animals have instinctive ways
to determine leaders for example the proverbial “alpha male”, humans developed
specific methods to create formal leadership and governance. On the most
primitive level leadership was conducted by group consensus through elders who
served as leaders because of their life experiences and direct connection to
their family members. These elders were charged with not just wisdom in day to
day affairs but also with propitiating the spirit realm, serving as intermediates
between the people, the forces of nature and the invisible energies they
perceived around them.
The leaders created traditions,
rituals, and ceremonies to acknowledge births, deaths, seasonal changes and to map
the passing of the heavenly bodies. This was the origin of Adams Calendar,
Nabta Playa and the other megaliths we mentioned in previous weeks. This is also the origin of what we call
culture. These rituals and ceremonies included chants, hand clapping, foot
stomping and rudimentary instruments.
In short Africans invented
government whether it was tribal elders, tribal council, selected chiefs,
hereditary chiefs or kings and queens. As their groups expanded over territory
and their populations grew, they developed hierarchies for social
administration, they created divisions of labor, work details and they
encouraged and incorporated artistic skills into their daily lives.
So when we attend a wedding funeral
or witness governments in action remember our ancestors were the first to do
these things! When we look at Africa we see
the beginnings of social/civil organization what we now call civilization. We
see aboriginal people exchanging, battering and trading amongst themselves and
between other tribal groups. This was the beginnings of commerce across the
continent and later into Asia and Europe.
Our ancestors were the first to chop
and carve trees into boats and canoes, to weave reeds to make water tight canoes
and we were the first to use these boats, canoes and sailing vessels to trade
our surplus crops, goods and artifacts first throughout Africa
then the world.
Europeans admit the first articulated and
practiced system of ethics (Maat) originated in Africa.
Timelines indicate the first monarchy/dynasty, extensive territorial occupation
and social organization originated in Africa.
Africans had empires but they were not all created by violence and invasion,
some were some were not.
In review Africans created: social
organization; we created rites of passage to mark the growth and transition of
members within the community and determined how they each fit into the social
scheme via trial and error and later formal tradition. We invented rituals and
ceremonies, we invented trade and commerce. We created metallurgy, working in
metals like gold, bronze and iron. We invented clothing, we invented adornment,
demarcations and decorations to distinguish social status, to tell whether a
female was married was an adolescent or a male was an initiated member of the
community, a warrior or an elder. We were the first to map the heavens. We
recognized sound had power and invented music, instruments and incorporated
music and sounds into our daily activities.
We invented meaningful symbols and their recognition whether it was
hieroglyphics on papyrus, on the walls, the megaliths or Her-em-akhet (misnamed
the Sphinx by the Greeks).
We created technology whether it
was a digging stick, a rudimentary plow, the ramp, and pulley. We developed
farming techniques like crop rotation, using fire to burn the soil to give it
nutrition. We were the first fishermen. We created the first planned urban
centers and cities. We were the first educators.
I could go on but you get the
drift, we are a creative, inventive and profound people. This creativity
resides in our DNA; it is in our genes and blood. We do ourselves our ancestors
and progeny a disservice if we allow our genius to atrophy, not be fully
developed or expropriated by others for their benefit and not ours!
-30-
Ancient African Megaliths Part 2
Ancient African
Megaliths Part 2
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
In recent weeks I've shared some
little known accomplishments of African people: boat building, seafaring and
last week the astronomical and ceremonial megaliths in South Africa and the Nubian
Desert. This information sheds light on the variety of African
genius, innovation creativity and achievement.
This week I’ll share two more ancient
megalithic sites. The word megalithic describes structures made of large stones
without the use of mortar or concrete, representing definite periods of
prehistory. Europeans always point to Stonehenge in Britain
as an example of a megalith but rarely mention the African megaliths that are
thousands of years older then Stonehenge.
Two examples are the Senegambian Circles on
the border of Senegal and Gambia and the Tiya Megaliths in central Ethiopia. The
Senegambian Circles are in West Africa located on the border between Senegal and Gambia is an ancient burial ground
and ceremonial center. The Senegambia Circles date back to around the third
century B.C.
“As ancient monuments go, the stone
circles of
Senegal
and
Gambia may not be in the
same league as the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge or the
Easter
Island statues. Yet, they represent a remarkable cultural and
architectural achievement of pre-historic western
Africa.
Located in an area 100 km wide and 350 km within Senegal and Gambia are 1053
stone circles consisting of no less than 28,930 monoliths around 2 m in height
and weighing more than 7 tons each. The stone circles seem to have had a
funerary purpose. Recent excavations suggest that the stones date back
from the 3rd century B.C. to 16th century A.D., reflecting a tradition that
endured for almost two millennia. The stone circles of Senegambia are just one
of the three trans-border World Heritage properties on the
Dark
Continent. It required some geological knowledge to identify the
best laterite rocks from the nearby quarries and carve out the monoliths in
cylindrical or polygonal pillars. The stones had to be extracted in singular
pieces, which required tremendous skill. Having accomplished this, the stones
were transported and erected in the various complexes along the River Gambia.
This required a strong social order able to mobilize the hundreds of laborers
required for the erection of each circle, much like in ancient
Egypt.
As the name suggests, the Stone Circles of
Senegambia are located between the River Senegal and the River Gambia in
West Africa. Around 1 km to the east of the Sine Ngayene
complex in
Senegal
lies the quarry from which many of the megaliths were removed and processed
.” Stone Circles of Senegambia
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/stone-circles-of-senegambia.html
The megaliths at Senegambia
have been designated by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage site because they recognize the
significance of the culture that produced these megaliths.
While the megaliths at Tiya are not
as old as Adam’s Calendar, Nabta Playa or the Senegambian Circles they
represent the use of large stones that have been carved and inscribed with
symbols that so far archaeologists and linguists have not been able to decode or
decipher. Researchers postulate the figures were erected and carved somewhere
between the tenth and fifteenth centuries of the Common Era.
In an academic thesis for a Masters Degree in
Tourism Development and Management on the importance of the Tiya site by Helebo
Elias, he writes “Tiya distinguishes with standing stelae, which are supposed
to be grave markers. Circles of smaller stones mark the graves. Archaeologists
dug up many skeletons, which could be dated to 1200-1400 A.D. (Gurage Zone
culture and Tourism,2017). Among the 36 currently standing stelae, 32 of them
are decorated. A sword design is frequent among the stelae. Inscribed under
UNESCO world heritage list in 1980. Since 1980, the outstanding universal value
of the Tiya megalithic site has been recognized as a World Heritage Site (WHS)
under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Tiya qualifies for inclusion on the
world Heritage List under Criterion I as the stelae with their enigmatic
configurations are unique as ‘a masterpiece of human creative genius.’ In
addition, they are highly representative of an expression of the Ethiopian
Megalithic period which clearly qualifies them to be included under Criterion
IV (Be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural, or
technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage (b)
in human history.”
http://etd.aau.edu.et/bitstream/handle/123456789/14871/8.%20Helebo%20Elias.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Both the Senegambian Circles and
Tiya have been designated by the United Nations Educational Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as World Heritage sites. The Senegambian Circles
and Tiya sites are similar to many African monuments in that they are
ceremonial funerary sites used to mark the burial places of leaders and common
folks.
The other similarity is they are
made from huge stones often weighing several tons that were dug and transported
to specific sites and crafted using tools to form precise shapes, engravings or
symbols. All this requires a set of values based upon beliefs and notions about
life and death, technological and manual skill to dig, transport, and shape and
erect the megaliths and monuments. We are talking about the fundamentals of
advanced civilizations.
We know Africans explored and
settled the continent of Africa but also the
whole globe and they carried their values, cosmology and ingenuity with them
wherever they went. We know ancient Africans were sky gazers and astronomers
who mapped the stars. Many African cultures such as the Dogan either claim they
came from other planets or that the beings who gave them their knowledge came
from the stars.
Africans invented and created
rituals, ceremonies, rites of passage and cosmologies that connected themselves
with the universe and the CREATOR (Ubuntu “I am because we are, we are because
I am” is a universal African philosophy) so it is not surprising they would
create monuments to mark what they saw in the sky and incorporated what they
saw in the heavens and believed about its origin with their personal lives and
environment on earth. The ancient admonition “As above so below” originated in Africa. The origins of cosmology, religion, ethics,
morality and philosophy were in Africa!
As I have said so many times,
Africans are an ancient and ingenious people. But we must also realize our
genius is not just about the material world it is also higher abstract thinking
that included ethics, spirituality, relationships with the universe, nature,
the social collective and each other e.g. Ubuntu, Maat and Hermetism. We ought
to celebrate and honor our ancestors and ourselves every day!!
-30-
Ancient African Megaliths
Ancient African Megaliths
Junious Ricardo Stanton
As we celebrate Black History, our
challenge is where do we begin, how do we fill in the blanks and connect the
dots to a legacy that is at least a hundred thousand years old? All too often we
think our history began with our ancestors’ enslavement and haulage to this
hemisphere, or with the earlier Arab invasions that influenced parts of the
African continent. Agreed there is much history and lessons of resiliency,
adaptation and survival we can learn from those but we must go back to the roots.
Some of us are so infatuated with
the Nile Valley
contributions, and rightly so because the remnants of those civilizations are
so awesome, we forget African people were always doing phenomenal things, being
creative and innovative in ways we don’t associate with Africa
due to our Eurocentric brainwashing and programming. There is evidence of ancient
African greatness that pre date dynastic Nubia and Kemet scattered throughout the continent.
Last week we spoke about seafaring,
how Africans were the earliest boat builders and I shared information about a
dug out canoe that was found in Nigeria
that is over eight thousand years old. This information is huge because it
shows the innovation and genius of our ancestors to navigate their environment.
We rarely associate Africans with water and seafaring but we were the first to
do it!
When we look at the continent of Africa, which by the way is the second largest on the
planet, we see remnants of greatness and genius all over. In fact when the European
invaders came upon them, they refused to believe or accept the fact they were
created by Africans! They said white people or aliens from outer space created
them.
Once they were forced to come to the conclusion
Africans did it, they suppressed much the information or use much more recent Europeans
sites as points of reference and comparison.
To be truthful there were/are some
Europeans like Albert Churchward, Basil Davidson, Robert Bauval and others who
gave Africans credit for their genius, and we are grateful for their honesty,
but it is up to us to do the research and tell our story first to ourselves
then to the world!
Way before there was Kush, Nubia, Kemit
and Aksum there were organized, settled communities throughout the African continent
that created megaliths, sky maps, sun and star calendars and living shelters
that were and still are remarkable in their lay out, construction and mystery.
Huge stones weighing tons were transported from other regions and placed in
strategic ordered locations that have astrological and energy significance. I will share a few with you and hope you will
do further research to get an idea just how awesome and creative we Africans
are.
One of the oldest discovered
megaliths in Africa is called Adam’s Calendar (a megalith is
a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either
alone or together with other stones. The word megalithic describes structures
made of such large stones without the
use of mortar or concrete, representing periods of prehistory characterized
by such constructions. (wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalith, my emphasis). Building without use of mortar or cement is a
process that is seen all over Africa!
Adam’s Calendar was discovered in South Africa quite
by accident by a pilot who flew over the region many times noticing circular
stone configurations. When one of his pilot buddies crashed into the mountains,
during the search and rescue effort he got a chance to explore and examine the
megaliths for himself.
“Adam’s Calendar is controversially
suggested to be the oldest man-made structure in the world. Sometimes
referred to as ‘African Stonehenge’, it predates both
Stonehenge
and the Great Pyramid of Giza by tens of thousands of years. Located in
Mpumalanga,
South Africa it is a standing stone
circle about 30 meters in diameter and has been estimated by some accounts to
be more than 75,000 years old. Various astronomical alignments have been
identified at the site and it is possibly the only example of a completely
functional, mostly intact megalithic stone calendar in the world.”
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/adam-s-calendar-oldest-megalithic-site-world-003160
Another fascinating site is Nabta
Playa, an ancient settlement located in the Nubian Desert many believe pre-dates
the dynastic period of Nubia
and Kemet. From the archeological evidence it appears Nabta Playa was an
urbanized community that served as a central location for astrological
observations, rituals and ceremonies. When discussing Nabta Playa many
Europeans call it the oldest site for astrological tracking and use Stonehenge
(in Britain)
as a comparative reference point. This is because they know nothing about
Adam’s Calendar which is thousands of years older than both Nabta Playa and Stonehenge.
Like Adam’s calendar Nabta Playa
had major sky mapping significance.
“Two
of these pairs align to form a line very close to a true north-south line,
and the other two pairs or gates align
to form an east-west line
. The
east-west alignment is calculated to be where the sun would have risen and set
from the summer solstice 6,500 years ago (4,500BC).
Alignments of standing stones and
megalithic structures (oval clusters of recumbent stones) extend for up to a
mile, marking north and east as well as 24 to 28 and 126 degrees east
of north, directions whose meanings are still being worked out. A ten-foot
circle composed primarily of stone slabs has four ‘windows/gates’ marked by
pairs of standing stones; the four are arranged in two pairs, one forming a
north-south line of sight and the other a line stretching from 62 to 298
degrees east of north. The latter coincides approximately with the summer
solstice sunrise
6,800 years
ago (4,800 BC), which would have fallen about 63 degrees east of north.”
http://transmissionsmedia.com/astronomical-alignments-of-some-ancient-structures/
It’s fascinating all these sites
have astronomical significance and some even speculate they are sky mapping
ceremonial centers. We discuss two more
ancient African sites next week.
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Celebrate Black History All The Time
Celebrate Black
History All the Time
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
We’re in
Black History Month and we still don’t get it, African people have the oldest, longest
and most creative history of any people or ethnic group in the planet; but we
don’t do the research or study the research others have done to show just how
ingenious our ancestors were/have been.
Last year I
came across a story on a Website that showed an eight thousand year old dug out
canoe in Nigeria.
This was significant on so many levels. First of all when we think of Africa, the second largest continent on this planet, we
don’t think of Africans as being seafarers, mariners or navigators. But we
should.
What we don’t realize is Africa is a large continent that abounds with major
rivers tributaries and lakes. Thousands of years ago our ancestor learned to
build the means to navigate these waterways. We tend to only think of the Nile River
but Africa has several major rivers, lakes and
bodies of water.
The Nile
River is the world’s longest river and
is one of two that flow south to north (the Amazon River in South
America is the second). The Congo River is also a long river, but
there are others such as the Niger,
Senegal, Volta, Zambezi, Orange and Limpopo
scattered throughout the continent. Then here are the large lakes: Victoria (named by the invading English), Albert, Nyasa
and Tanganyika.
So it should come as no surprise the ancient people of Africa
learned to build canoes, sail boats or that they were expert fishermen,
swimmers and explorers.
We know ancient
Africans populated the world but we never consider the fact they did so by sea
as well as land, mainly because we still believe the lies about Africans spread
by our adversaries and enslavers.
Most maps of African out-migrations
show land routes but I’m convinced they also used rafts and boats to travel
from Africa to
Asia and beyond. Now others
postulate this theory also. “Human ancestors that left
Africa
hundreds of thousands of years ago to see the rest of the world were no
landlubbers. Stone hand axes unearthed on the Mediterranean island of Crete
indicate that an ancient Homo species — perhaps Homo erectus — had
used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via
at least some of the larger islands in between, says archaeologist Thomas
Strasser of Providence College in Rhode Island.
Several hundred double-edged cutting implements discovered at
nine sites in southwestern Crete date to at
least 130,000 years ago and probably much earlier, Strasser reported January 7
at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology. Many of these
finds closely resemble hand axes fashioned in Africa
about 800,000 years ago by H. erectus,
he says. It was around that time that H. erectus spread from Africa to parts of
Asia and Europe.” Hominoids Went Out of
Africa On Rafts.
https://www.wired.com/2010/01/ancient-seafarers/
Our African
ancestors first learned to navigate water by mastering the streams, rivers and
lakes in Africa. The discovery of the eight
thousand year old canoe in Nigeria
makes the case for African technology, ingenuity and use of water to secure
food and travel from place to place.
This canoe is the third oldest in
the world. “Since the Dufuna canoe was
discovered by a local Fulani herdsman in 1987 archaeologists have been in
frenzy about the discovery. The canoe which was excavated by a combined team of
Nigerian and German archeologists in 1994 at Dufuna, has continued to amaze
them, for the simple reason that it has changed the course of history. Dufuna
is a village along the Komodugu Gana river in Fune local government area of Yobe State.
The boat was dug out from a depth of five meters beneath the earth's surface
and measured 8.4 meters in length, 0.5 meters wide and about 5 cm thick varying
at certain parts of the surface. The age of the boat has been put at about 8000
years old (6000 BC), thus, becoming the oldest boat in Africa
and third oldest on earth. The canoe belongs to the Late Stone Age period
(Neolithic Age), when humans ceased to roam the face of the earth hunting to
become herdsmen and cultivators and in the process becoming modifiers of their
environment, with complex social structures, in response to new problems and ways
of dealing with situations. ‘The discovery of this boat is an important
landmark in the history of Nigeria
in particular and Africa in general’ said the
late Dr. Omotoso Eluyemi then the Director of the National Commission for
Museums and Monuments.
‘Besides proving that the Nigerian
society was at par (if not earlier) than that of
Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and
Phoenicia,
the discovery also provides early concrete evidence that Africans have been
exploring technology to modify their environment and suit their needs. But more
importantly, the canoe has shown that people in the
Niger area had a history of
advanced technology and that they had mastered the three major items of
neolithic culture which included the fashioning, standardization and
utilization of tools according to set traditions. It gives concrete evidence of
transportation by seas as well as providing evidence of some form of long
distance commercial activities indicative of existing political and economic
structures.’”
https://www.nigeriagalleria.com/Nigeria/States_Nigeria/Yobe/Dufuna-Canoe-Yobe.html
We tend to
focus only on the Nile Valley contributions to human development, but the Nile Valley
was merely one center of advanced development. Our ancestors were innovative
and ingenious all over the continent of Africa.
We need to learn more about their genius and innovation, Black History Month is
merely the starting point.
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