CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Judge rules Terra ‘stablecoin’ and other tokens are securities in victory for the SEC and departure from Ripple case

Leo Schwartz
Thu, December 28, 2023

AFP/Getty Images


A federal judge sided with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a closely watched crypto case on Thursday, ruling that four crypto tokens offered by the failed Terraform Labs company—including UST and LUNA—constituted unregistered securities.

As the crypto industry battles regulators over how to classify digital assets, the decision is a setback for the sector’s interpretation of securities law and a departure from a separate decision by a different judge in the Southern District of New York over the token XRP.

In his 71-page decision, Judge Jed Rakoff wrote that there is “no genuine dispute” that the four crypto tokens offered by Terraform were securities because “they are investment contracts,” arguing that defendants wanted to “cast aside decades of settled law,” citing the seminal Supreme Court precedent called the Howey test.

“Howey’s definition of ‘investment contract’ was and remains a binding settlement of the law, not dicta,” wrote Rakoff.

The trials of Do Kwon

During crypto’s bull run of 2021, Terraform Labs represented one of the most successful projects in the sector, raking in billions of dollars and backed by prominent investors in the space. With its so-called algorithmic stablecoin, UST, Terraform cofounder Do Kwon promised a crypto token that could maintain a $1 peg through a complicated system of distributing a secondary cryptocurrency called LUNA.

Less than a year later, UST lost its $1 peg in a spectacular meltdown in May of 2022, causing investors—including retail traders across the world—to lose their money. The prices for both UST and LUNA plummeted in a death spiral. Kwon was soon arrested in Montenegro, triggering an ongoing extradition fight between the U.S. and his home country of South Korea, with fraud charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In February 2023, the SEC sued Terraform Labs and Kwon, alleging that they orchestrated a multibillion-dollar securities fraud by offering unregistered securities, including UST and LUNA, as well as two other crypto tokens tied to the ecosystem, MIR and wLUNA.

In response, lawyers for the defendants made an argument similar to that of other crypto companies currently in legal battle with the SEC: U.S. securities law is antiquated, and crypto tokens do not fall under the traditional definition of the Howey test because they did not represent an investment in a common enterprise with the expectation of profit derived from the effort of others. UST, after all, was meant to maintain a $1 peg.

After U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled in a separate court case involving the crypto company Ripple—finding that its crypto token XRP itself was not a security, and that its sale only constituted an investment contract in certain contexts—lawyers for Terra filed a motion to dismiss.

Rakoff, the judge overseeing the Terra case, threw cold water on his colleague’s decision, dismissing the motion and rejecting the approach used by Torres to distinguish how different digital assets are sold.

Thursday’s decision furthers Rakoff’s argument that the sale of Terraform’s crypto assets constituted an unregistered security. Even with UST, the token meant to be pegged to $1, Rakoff argued that holders of the token could deposit the tokens in a proprietary protocol developed by Terraform to earn back a yield. The distinction, however, seems to support the argument that stablecoins that do not offer a yield would not constitute a security.

Rakoff left one matter of the case unsettled—the question of fraud claims related to UST’s depeg brought by the SEC. In his decision, Rakoff wrote that the SEC’s evidence for its allegations comes from third-party whistleblowers that should be heard before a jury. Furthermore, he argued that defendants have shown a “genuine dispute” over whether a “reasonable investor” would have found statements around UST’s depeg to be misleading. Part of the pending case will relate to the involvement of Jump, a prominent trading firm that served as one of Terra’s main backers.

“We strongly disagree with the decision and do not believe that the UST stablecoin or the other tokens at issue are securities. Further, the SEC’s fraud claims are not supported by evidence, and we will continue to vigorously defend against those meritless allegations at trial," said a spokesperson for Terraform Labs in a statement shared with Fortune.

The jury trial is scheduled to begin in January 2024.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Judge sides with US SEC, says Terraform Labs crypto founder Do Kwon violated law

Thu, December 28, 2023

The seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seen at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A federal judge ruled on Thursday that cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon and his company Terraform Labs violated U.S. law by failing to register two digital currencies that collapsed in 2022.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission in its case stemming from the implosion of the TerraUSD and Luna currencies.

Rakoff also denied summary judgment to both sides on the SEC's fraud claims, which will proceed toward a scheduled Jan. 29, 2024 trial. He dismissed SEC claims that the defendants illegally offered security-based swaps.

A Terraform spokesman said the company strongly disagreed with the decision, did not believe its tokens were securities, and would continue defending against the SEC's "meritless" fraud claims at trial.

The SEC had no immediate comment.

Kwon, a South Korea native, has also been charged with fraud by U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan.

He has been fighting extradition to the United States from Montenegro, where he was arrested in March several hours before the criminal fraud charges were announced.

Kwon had designed TerraUSD, a "stablecoin" designed to maintain a constant $1 price, and Luna, a more traditional token whose value fluctuated but was closely linked to TerraUSD.

Both cryptocurrencies lost an estimated $40 billion or more when TerraUSD proved unable in May 2022 to maintain its $1 peg.

Their collapse also dragged down the value of other cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.

The SEC contended that four of the defendants' crypto assets, including TerraUSD and Luna, were unregistered securities because they qualified as "investment contracts."

It also accused Terraform and Kwon of repeatedly misleading investors about the stability of TerraUSD, including by claiming that their cryptocurrencies would increase in value.

'NO GENUINE DISPUTE'

In a 71-page decision, Rakoff said there was "no genuine dispute" that the four crypto assets were securities under a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision defining investment contracts.

The Court ruled in that case, SEC v WJ Howey Co, that an investment of money in a common enterprise, with profits to come solely from others' efforts, was an investment contract.

But the judge also said reasonable jurors could disagree over whether the defendants intended to defraud investors in multiple statements about Terraform's business.

These included statements about TerraUSD's temporary May 2021 failure to maintain its $1 peg, and how a popular Korean mobile payment app used the Terraform blockchain to settle transactions and supported Luna's value.

Rakoff said the SEC's remedies for the sale of unregistered securities would be decided once the defendants' liability on the fraud claims has been resolved.

The cryptocurrency industry has fiercely denied that its tokens qualify as securities.

It won a victory in July when another judge on the Manhattan federal court said some tokens sold by Ripple Labs did not qualify as securities, because purchasers did not know if their money went to Ripple or third parties.

The case is SEC v Terraform Labs Pte Ltd et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 23-01346.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Diane Craft, Matthew Lewis and Jamie Freed)

TS INC. A SELF REPLICATING COMMODITY FETISH 

Taylor Swift pushes vinyl sales to 33-year high

Michael Bow
Wed, 27 December 2023 

Taylor Swift Vinyl

Vinyl sales rose to their highest level in more than 30 years in 2023 after Taylor Swift’s new rerecorded album propelled purchases to their fastest growth in a decade

Nearly six million vinyl units were sold in the past 12 months, marking a rise of nearly 12pc on the previous year and the biggest haul since 1990, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Swift’s rerecording of her album 1989 was the biggest-selling vinyl LP of the year while new releases from Ed Sheeran, Lana Del Rey, Lewis Capaldi and The Rolling Stones also cemented a strong year for the format.


Classic albums like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon were also among the top 10.

Vinyl sales have grown every year since 2007 but the 11.7pc rise in 2023 is the best for a decade.

A last-minute Christmas stampede for vinyl also saw 250,000 units sold last week alone, the biggest week for vinyl sales since 2000.

BPI chief executive Jo Twist said: “Led by vinyl, the resurgence of physical product underlines the resilience of the UK music market at a time when streaming consumption continues to hit record levels.”

CDs, which still outsell vinyl at nearly 11 million units per year, also surprised with their slowest decline in several years. The format had been consistently falling by double digits.

CD sales dropped by 20pc in 2022, but improved this year falling by only 6pc as Take That’s new album This Life and Ms Swift’s 1989 stemmed the decline.

Strong vinyl sales and a better performance from CDs meant this year nearly marked the first time physical sales had grown since 2004.

Overall, sales of physical formats fell by only 1pc versus 2022.

Despite the vinyl revival, Brits still consume most of their music through streaming services, with 86pc of recorded music consumed in the UK done through streaming apps like Spotify and Apple.

Vinyl has been growing in popularity for several years thanks to its retro appeal, eye-catching artwork and the ritual of listening to records.

Record labels have also been keen to promote the format as vinyl albums generally retail for around £30 or more.

Vinyl sales are generally lifted by artists selling limited edition versions. Superfans will buy the albums in multiple formats, helping boost sales.

The last time vinyl sales were this high was in the early nineties when megastars like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Whitney Houston dominated sales.

Sales of vinyl fell throughout the late nineties before hitting a nadir in 2007 when only 200,000 units were sold.

Most money for endangered species goes to a small number of creatures, leaving others in limbo

This image released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a flower from a shrub known as marrón bacora on March 21, 2021. The flowering shrub, found in dry forests on St. John’s, Virgin Islands, is threatened by predation, invasive species, urban sprawl, and climate change.

 (USFWS via AP)

MATTHEW BROWN and JOHN FLESHER
Fri, 29 December 2023 

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Since passage of the Endangered Species Act 50 years ago, more than 1,700 plants, mammals, fish, insects and other species in the U.S. have been listed as threatened or endangered with extinction. Yet federal government data reveals striking disparities in how much money is allocated to save various biological kingdoms.

Of the roughly $1.2 billion a year spent on endangered and threatened species, about half goes toward recovery of just two types of fish: salmon and steelhead trout along the West Coast. Tens of millions of dollars go to other widely known animals including manatees, right whales, grizzly bears and spotted owls.

But the large sums directed toward a handful of species means others have gone neglected, in some cases for decades, as they teeter on potential extinction.


At the bottom of the spending list is the tiny Virginia fringed mountain snail, which had $100 spent on its behalf in 2020, according to the most recent data available. The underground-dwelling snail has been seen only once in the past 35 years, according to government records, yet it remains a step ahead of more than 200 imperiled plants, animals, fish and other creatures that had nothing spent on their behalf.

With climate change increasing threats to organisms around the planet and adding to the number that qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act, government officials are struggling in many cases to execute recovery actions required under the law.

Some scientists even argue for spending less on costly efforts that may not work and putting the money toward species with less expensive recovery plans that have languished.

“For a tiny fraction of the budget going to spotted owls, we could save whole species of cacti that are less charismatic but have an order of magnitude smaller budget,” said Leah Gerber, a professor of conservation science at Arizona State University.

An Associated Press analysis of 2020 data found fish got 67% of the spending, the majority for several dozen salmon and steelhead populations in California, Oregon and Washington. Mammals were a distant second with 7% of spending and birds had about 5%. Insects received just 0.5% of the money and plants about 2%. Not included in those percentages is money divided among multiple species.

Species drawing no spending at all included stoneflies threatened by climate change in Montana's Glacier National Park, the stocky California tiger salamander that has lost ground to development and flowering plants such as the scrub lupine around Orlando, Florida, where native habitat has been converted for theme parks.

Such spending inequities are longstanding and reflect a combination of biological realities and political pressures. Restoring salmon and steelhead populations is expensive because they are widespread and hemmed in by massive hydroelectric dams. They also have a broad political constituency with Native American tribes and commercial fishing interests that want fisheries restored.

Congress over decades has sent massive sums of money to agencies such as the Bonneville Power Administration that operate dams along rivers the fish once traveled up to spawn. The money pays for fish ladders around dams, habitat restoration projects, monitoring by scientists and other needs.

More than half the species protected under the Endangered Species Act are plants, but the entire plant kingdom was almost excluded from the landmark conservation law when it was adopted in 1973, according to the Congressional Record and Faith Campbell, who interviewed people involved in the bill's passage for a 1988 study published in the Pace Environmental Law Review.

Plants initially were left out when the measure passed the Senate, with opposition led by influential Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. They were added back at the 11th hour following a push by botanists from the Smithsonian Institution and Lee Talbot, a senior scientist at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, according to Campbell.

Botanists at the time proposed more than 2,500 plants as threatened with future extinction. However, most failed to get protections because federal officials failed to act prior to a Congressional deadline.

Today more than 900 trees, ferns, flowers and other flora are protected. Combined, they received about $26 million in 2020.

“In terms of numbers they're catching up, but as far as money and attention they're still not getting their share," said Campbell, a longtime environmental advocate who now works at the Center for Invasive Species Prevention. “The threats are serious, they're the same as the threats to animals. Yet they don't have the political clout of, say, a couple dozen of the big animal species that attract favorable attention or get in people's way.”

Most plants receive less money than recommended under their recovery plans, according to Gerber and others. Researchers say that has direct consequences: species tend to decline when allocated less funding than needed, while they have a higher chance of recovery when receiving enough money.

Gerber has suggested redirecting some money from species getting more than their recovery plans seek — the bull trout, the gopher tortoise and the Northern spotted owl among them — to those receiving little or none. Her ideas have stirred pushback from some conservationists.

Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappaport Clark said debating how to allocate scarce resources for rescuing endangered species is a distraction.

“The issue is not where the money is spent,” said Clark, now president of Defenders of Wildlife. “The issue is that there isn’t nearly enough of it.”

Gerber said she doesn’t want to let anything go extinct but that a strategic approach is needed with the shortage of resources.

“Unfortunately, the clock is ticking,” she added. “We need to take action.”

Wildlife officials say they are trying to do just that with money for endangered species in the climate law signed last year by President Joe Biden.

It included $62.5 million officials said will allow them to hire biologists to craft recovery plans to guide future conservation work, initially for 32 species and for as many as 300 over coming years.

Among them are a colorful fish known as the candy darter that lives in rivers in the southeastern U.S., a flowering shrub from the Virgin Islands called marron bacora, the Panama City crayfish of Florida and the pocket-sized Stephens' kangaroo rat in southern California.

The extra money is intended to provide some relief after the agency’s environmental review staff fell 20% over the past two decades, even while new species were listed, according to officials. Increased funding is especially important because more than half the agency's existing recovery plans are more than two decades old, according to Lindsay Rosa, vice president for conservation research at Defenders of Wildlife.

Also in the law was $5.1 million for recovery projects that could benefit hundreds of species from four groups that officials said have historically been underfunded: Hawaii and Pacific island plants, butterflies and moths, freshwater mussels and desert fish in the southwestern U.S.

“Each of these species are part of this larger web of life,” Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said in an interview. “They’re all important.”

___

Flesher reported from Traverse City, Michigan. Data journalist Nicky Forster contributed to this story from New York.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Endangered Species Act Spending
This image released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a Stephens’ kangaroo rat is seen on a person's knee as it’s held by the tail on Oct. 16, 2017. They have fur-lined external cheek pouches used to transport seeds and large hind legs used for jumping. Large sums of government money directed toward a handful of species means others, such as the kangaroo rat, have gone neglected in some cases for decades after they were given federal protections. (Joanna Gilkeson/USFWS via AP)


FILE - Water flows through the Dalles Dam in the Columbia River, in Dalles, Ore, on June 3, 2011. Restoring salmon and steelhead populations is expensive because they’re widespread and hemmed in by massive hydroelectric dams. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

 This August 2017 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a winter-run Chinook salmon. About half of government spending on threatened and endangered species goes toward efforts to conserve two types of fish, salmon and steelhead, along the U.S. West Coast. 

(Steve Martarano/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP, File)

This image released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a colorful fish known as the candy darter at the bottom of a rocky stream on May 11, 2022. Since passage of the Endangered Species Act 50 years ago, almost 1,700 plants, animals, fish, insects and other species have been listed as threatened or endangered with extinction. Yet federal government data reveals striking disparities in how much money is allocated to save various biological kingdoms.

 (Ryan Hagerty/USFWS via AP)

This undated image released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a small lobster-shaped Panama City crayfish sitting on an open hand. Panama City crayfish are found only in Bay County, Florida. They are among dozens of species that federal officials are giving more attention to in an effort to address imperiled plants and animals that have been historically underfunded.

 (USFWS via AP)

 

Sacred Tree or Paradise Tree? The Christmas Tree and Nature

by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / December 25th, 2023

A red bauble on a Christmas tree (a symbol of apples?)

The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews used evergreen wreaths, garlands, and trees to symbolise their respect for nature and their belief in eternal life. The pagan Europeans worshipped trees and had the custom of decorating their houses and barns with evergreens, or erecting a Yule tree during midwinter holidays. However, the modern Christmas tree can be shown to have roots in Christian traditions too.

The term ‘pagan’ originated in a contemptuous, disdainful, and disparaging attitude towards people who had a respect for nature, the source of their sustenance: “Paganism (from classical Latin pāgānus “rural”, “rustic”, later “civilian”) is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. Paganism has broadly connoted the “religion of the peasantry”.”

As people gradually converted to Christianity, December 25 became the date for celebrating Christmas. Christianity’s “most significant holidays were Epiphany on January 6, which commemorated the arrival of the Magi after Jesus’ birth, and Easter, which celebrated Jesus’ resurrection.” For the first three centuries of Christianity’s existence, “Jesus Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated at all” and “the first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honouring Jesus’ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from AD 336.” It is also believed that December 25 became the date for Christ’s birth “to coincide with existing pagan festivals honouring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra (the Persian god of light). That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.”

During the Middle Ages, the church used mystery plays to dramatize biblical stories for largely illiterate people to illustrate the stories of the bible “from creation to damnation to redemption”. [1] Thus, we find evidence of a connection between the Christmas tree and the Tree of Life in the Paradise plays as well as pagan sacred trees.

In western Germany, the story of Adam and Eve was acted out using a prop of a paradise tree, a fir tree decorated with apples to represent the Garden of Eden:

The Germans set up a paradise tree in their homes on December 24, the religious feast day of Adam and Eve. They hung wafers on it (symbolizing the eucharistic host, the Christian sign of redemption); in a later tradition the wafers were replaced by cookies of various shapes. Candles, symbolic of Christ as the light of the world, were often added. In the same room was the “Christmas pyramid,” a triangular construction of wood that had shelves to hold Christmas figurines and was decorated with evergreens, candles, and a star. By the 16th century the Christmas pyramid and the paradise tree had merged, becoming the Christmas tree.

Full-page miniature of Adam, Eve and the Serpent, [f. 7r] (1445) (The New York Public Library Digital Collections)

The story of Adam and Eve begins with their disobedience, but the play cycle ends with the promise of the coming Saviour. The medieval Church “declared December 24 the feast day of Adam and Eve. Around the twelfth century this date became the traditional one for the performance of the paradise play.”

Over time the tree of paradise began to transcend the religious context of the miracle plays and moved towards a role in the Christmas celebrations of the guilds. [2]

For example: The first evidence of decorated trees associated with Christmas Day are trees in guildhalls decorated with sweets to be enjoyed by the apprentices and children. In Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), in 1441, 1442, 1510, and 1514, the Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their guild houses in Reval (now Tallinn) and Riga.

“Possibly the earliest existing picture of a Christmas tree being paraded through the streets with a bishop figure to represent St Nicholas, 1521 (Germanisches National Museum)”. (The Medieval Christmas by Sophie Jackson (2005) p. 68)

Early records show “that fir trees decorated with apples were first known in Strasbourg in 1605. The first use of candles on such trees is recorded by a Silesian duchess in 1611.” Furthermore, the earliest known dated representation of a Christmas tree is 1576, seen on a keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, today France).

Keystone sculpture at Turckheim, Alsace (MPK)

The paradise tree represented two important trees of the Garden of Eden: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. It is likely that “because most other trees were barren and lifeless during December, the actors chose to hang the apples from an evergreen tree rather than from an apple tree.”

The mystery plays of Oberufer

A good example of this old tradition is the mystery plays of Oberufer. The Austrian linguist and literary critic Karl Julius Schröer (1825-1900) “discovered a Medieval cycle of Danube Swabian mystery plays in Oberufer, a village since engulfed by the Bratislava’s borough of Főrév (German: Rosenheim, today’s Ružinov). Schröer collected manuscripts, made meticulous textual comparisons, and published his findings in the book Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn (The German Nativity Plays of Hungary) in 1857/1858.”The plates giving an impression of costume designs, based on Rudolf Steiner’s (who studied under Karl Julius Schröer (1825-1900)) directions, were painted by the Editor’s father, Eugen Witta, who saw the plays produced by Rudolf Steiner many times while working as a young architect on the first Goetheanum.

Before the actual performance the whole theatrical company went in procession through the village. They were headed by the ‘Tree-singer’, who carried in his hand the small ‘Paradise Tree’—a kind of symbol of the Tree of Life. The story of the tree and its fruit is mentioned in the text of the play:

But see, but see a tree stands here
Which precious fruit doth bear,
That God has made his firm decree
It shall not eaten be.
Yea, rind and flesh and stone
They shall leave well alone.
This tree is very life,
Therefore God will not have
That man shall eat thereof.

Actors portraying Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise (Eve: Ye must delve and I shall spin – our bodily sustenance for to win.) Performed by the Players of St Peter in the Church of St Clement Eastcheap, London, England in 2004 November.

The Paradise Tree: Egyptian origins?

Gary Greenberg has compared many stories of the bible with earlier Egyptian myths to try and understand where the ideas contained in the Old Testament originated. He explains:

In the Garden of Eden God planted two trees, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and The Tree of Life. Eating from the former gave one moral knowledge; eating from the latter conferred eternal life. He also placed man in that garden to tend to the plants but told him he may not eat from the Tree of Knowledge (and therefore become morally knowledgeable). About eating from the Tree of Life, God said nothing: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen 2:17). […] Adam and Eve did not die when they ate from the tree. Indeed, God feared that they would next eat from The Tree of Life and gain immortality. [3]

Greenberg notes the similarity of these ideas with Egyptian texts and traditions, specifically the writings from Egyptian Coffin Text 80 concerning Shu and Tefnut:

The most significant portions of Egyptian Coffin Text 80 concern the children of Atum, the Heliopolitan Creator. Atum’s two children are Shu and Tefnut, and in this text Shu is identified as the principle of life and Tefnut is identified as the principle of moral order, a concept that the Egyptians refer to as Ma’at. These are the two principles associated with the two special trees in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Not only does the Egyptian text identify these same two principles as offspring of the Creator deity, the text goes on to say that Atum (whom the biblical editors had confused with Adam) is instructed to eat of his daughter, who signifies the principle of moral order. “It is of your daughter Order that you shall eat. (Coffin Text 80, line 63). This presents us with a strange correlation. Both Egyptian myth and Genesis tell us that the chief deity created two fundamental principles, Life and Moral Order. In the Egyptian myth, Atum is told to eat of moral order but in Genesis, Adam is forbidden to eat of moral order. [4]

In another description we can see the similarities between the Egyptian and biblical stories:

Atum-Ra looked upon the nothingness and recognized his aloneness, and so he mated with his own shadow to give birth to two children, Shu (god of air, whom Atum-Ra spat out) and Tefnut (goddess of moisture, whom Atum-Ra vomited out). Shu gave to the early world the principles of life while Tefnut contributed the principles of order. Leaving their father on the ben-ben [the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which the creator deity Atum settled], they set out to establish the world. In time, Atum-Ra became concerned because his children were gone so long, and so he removed his eye and sent it in search of them. While his eye was gone, Atum-Ra sat alone on the hill in the midst of chaos and contemplated eternity. Shu and Tefnut returned with the eye of Atum-Ra (later associated with the Udjat eye, the Eye of Ra, or the All-Seeing Eye) and their father, grateful for their safe return, shed tears of joy. These tears, dropping onto the dark, fertile earth of the ben-ben, gave birth to men and women.

However, Greenberg points out the differences between the two stories:

Despite the close parallels between the two descriptions there is one glaring conflict. In the Egyptian text Nun (the personification of the Great Flood) urged Atum (the Heliopolitan Creator) to eat of his daughter Tefnut, giving him access to knowledge of moral order. In Genesis, God forbade Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, denying him access moral knowledge. [5]

Why was Adam denied access to moral knowledge? Greenberg writes:

God feared that he would obtain eternal life if he ate from the Tree of Life and it became necessary to expel him from the Garden. […] The Egyptians believed that if you lived a life of moral order, the god Osiris, who ruled over the afterlife, would award you eternal life. That was the philosophical link between these two fundamental principles of Life and Moral Order, and that is why Egyptians depicted them as the children of the Creator. In effect, knowledge of moral behaviour was a step towards immortality and godhead. That is precisely the issue framed in Genesis. When Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, God declared that if Adam also ate from the Tree of Life he would become like God himself. But Hebrews were monotheists. The idea that humans could become god-like flew in the face of the basic theological concept of biblical religion, that there was and could be only one god. Humans can’t become god-like. [6]

Adam and Eve and the Serpent—Expulsion from Paradise, ca. 1480-1500 (Anonymous)

Greenberg then describes the fundamental differences between Hebrew monotheism and Egyptian polytheism:

The Hebrew story is actually a sophisticated attack on the Egyptian doctrine of moral order leading to eternal life. It begins by transforming Life and Moral Order from deities into trees, eliminating the cannibalistic imagery suggested by Atum eating of his daughter. Then, Adam was specifically forbidden to eat the fruit of Moral Order. Next, Adam was told that not only wouldn’t he achieve eternal life if he ate of Moral Order but that he would actually die if he did eat it. Finally, Adam was expelled from the Garden before he could eat from the Tree of Life and live for eternity. […] When God told Adam that he would surely die the very day he ate from the Tree of Knowledge, the threat should be understood to mean that humans should not try to become like a deity. God didn’t mean that Adam would literally drop dead the day he ate the forbidden fruit; he meant that the day Adam violated the commandment he would lose access to eternal life. […] Once he violated the commandment, he lost access to the Tree of Life and could no longer eat the fruit that prevented death. [7]

The difference between the lord/slave relationship of monotheism and the nature-based ideology of polytheistic paganism is that the subject is denied an eternal place with the master in the former but is welcomed as an equal in the latter. This is because the subject is an integral part of nature in paganism:

“In the shamanic world, not only every tree, but every being was and is holy – because they are all imbued with the wonderful power of life, the great mystery of universal Being. “Yes, we believe that, even below heaven, the forests have their gods also, the sylvan creatures and fauns and different kinds of goddesses” (Pliny the Elder II, 3). [8]

It is also important to note “that the “serpent in the tree” motif associated with the Adam and Eve story comes directly from Egyptian art. The Egyptians believed that Re, the sun God that circled the earth every day, had a nightly fight with the serpent Aphophis and each night defeated him. Several Egyptian paintings show a scene in which Re, appearing in the form of “Mau, the Great Cat of Heliopolis,” sits before a tree while the serpent Apophis coils about the tree, paralleling the image of rivalry between Adam and the serpent in the tree of the Garden of Eden.” [9]

The sun god Ra, in the form of Great Cat, slays the snake Apophis. (Image credit:  Eisnel – Public Domain)

Thus, we have moved from the biblical story of Adam and Eve back to the earlier paganism (the connection with Nature) of the Egyptians. While there is much evidence that one of the sources of the origin of the Christmas tree is in the ancient pagan worship of trees and evergreen boughs, there is also a lot of evidence that another source of the Christmas tree is in the medieval mystery plays where the Paradise tree was a necessary prop for the biblical story of Adam and Eve. If we look back even further to Egyptian mythology, we can see parallels between the biblical stories of creation and the Egyptian myths that also illustrate fundamental philosophical and spiritual differences between monotheist and polytheist ideology, i.e. the differences between the ‘enslaved’ (with their Lord/Master who can reward or punish) and the people who work with and respect the cycles of nature (persons outside the bounds of the Christian community, ethnic religions, Indigenous peoples, etc.).

Indeed, Tuck and Yang (2012:6) propose a criterion (for the term Indigenous) based on accounts of origin: “Indigenous peoples are those who have creation stories, not colonization stories, about how we/they came to be in a particular place – indeed how we/they came to be a place. Our/their relationships to land comprise our/their epistemologies, ontologies, and cosmologies”.

By the 1970s, the term Indigenous was used as a way of “linking the experiences, issues, and struggles of groups of colonized people across international borders”, thus politicising their resistance to the dominant colonising narratives that historically spread while using Christianity as a form of social control on a global scale.

Thus, whether the Christmas tree arises out of the pagan worship of trees or the nature-based polytheism of Egyptian lore about Life and Knowledge (as the Paradise Tree), the Christmas tree still plays an important and special part in our lives today, demonstrating that our relationship with nature goes back millennia. We can choose to be exiled from nature or become involved in the cycles of nature in ways that end our current destructive practices.

NOTES:

1. Inventing the Christmas Tree by Bernd Brunner (2012) p. 15
2. Inventing the Christmas Tree by Bernd Brunner (2012) p. 16
3. 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p. 48
4. 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p. 49
5. 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) p. 51
6. 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) pps. 51/52
7. 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) pps. 51/52/
8. Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide by Christian Ratsch and Claudia Muller- Ebeling (2003) p. 24
9. 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (2000) pps. 49/50

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. Read other articles by Caoimhghin.

 HO ,HO, HO, NO, NO, NO, 

Red Sea Deployments: Canberra Says No

by Binoy Kampmark / December 25th, 2023

The failure of the United States to convince the Australian government to send one vessel to aid coalition efforts to deter Houthi disruption of international shipping in the Red Sea was a veritable storm whipped up in a teacup.  The entire exercise, dressed as an international mission titled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is intended as a response to the growing tensions of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.

Washington has made no secret of the fact that it wants to keep Iran away from Israel’s predations by deterring any provocative moves from Teheran’s proxies.  But Israel’s murderous war in the Gaza Strip is not exactly selling well, and a special coalition is being seen as something of a distracting trick.  But even within this assembly of states, the messages are far from uniform.

France’s Defence Minister, for instance, has promised that its ships would remain under French command, supplementing an already pre-existing troop presence.  Italy’s Defence Ministry, in sending the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea, has its eye on protecting the interests of Italian shipowners, clarifying that the deployment would not take place as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian.  Likewise Spain, which has noted that EU-coordinated and NATO-led missions took priority over any unilateral Red Sea operation.

To that end, the Australian government has been unusually equivocal.  In recent months, the tally of obedience to wishes from Washington has grown.  But on the issue of sending this one vessel, the matter was far from certain.  Eventually, the decision was made to keep the focus closer to home and the Indo-Pacific; no vessel would be sent to yet another coalition effort in the Middle East led by the United States.

The sentiment, as reported in The Guardian Australia, was that Australia would reduce its naval presence in the Middle East “to enable more resources to be deployed in our region.”  In doing so, Canberra was merely reiterating the position of the previous Coalition administration.

In October 2020, the Morrison government announced an end to the three-decades long deployment of the Royal Australian Navy in the Middle East.  Then Defence Minister Linda Reynolds revealed that Australia would no longer be sending a RAN ship to the Middle East on an annual basis, and would withdraw from the US-led naval coalition responsible for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz by 2020’s end.

It was good ground for Australia’s current Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to build on.  In his words, “We’ve actually consulted our Australian Defence Force heads about these matters and with our American friends.  That’s why you’ve seen no criticism from the US administration”.  When pressed for further clarification about the allegedly inadequate state of Australia’s naval capabilities, the PM simply affirmed the already guaranteed (and dangerous) commitment of Canberra to “the Indo-Pacific, a fairly large region that we look after” with “our American friends.”

The warmongers were particularly irate at the modest refusal.  Where there is war, they see no reason for Australia not to participate.  And if it concerns the United States, it follows, by default, that it should concern Australian military personnel and the exercise of some fictitious muscle.  This slavish caste of mind has dominated foreign policy thinking in Canberra for decades and asserted itself in an almost grotesque form with the surrender of sovereignty to the US military industrial complex under the AUKUS agreement.

The Coalition opposition, displeased with Albanese’s decision, had no truck for diplomacy.  Lurking behind their reasoning were script notes prepared for them by the US-Israeli concern that Iran, and its Houthi allies, be kept in their box.  “Is Mr Albanese seriously claiming that Australia can assert diplomatic influence over the Houthi rebels?” asked the Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie and the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor.

In the Murdoch press, two-bit, eye-glazing commentary on Australia neglecting its duties to the US war machine in distant seas could be found in frothy fury.  Here is Greg Sheridan, more cumbersome than ever, in The Australian: “We are saying to the Americans and the Brits – under AUKUS we expect you to send your most powerful military assets, nuclear submarines, to Australia to provide for our security, but we are so small, so lacking in capability and so scared of our own shadow, that under no circumstances can we spare a single ship of any kind to help you protect commercial shipping routes – from which we benefit directly – in the Red Sea.”

The Royal Australian Navy, Sheridan splutters, is simply not up to the task.  One of its eight ANZAC frigates is almost never in the water.  The RAN is short of crews and short of “specialist anti-drone capabilities.”  The implication here is evident: the government must, in the manner of Viv Nicholson’s declaration on her husband winning the football pools in 1961, “spend, spend, spend.”

Paul Kelly, another Murdoch emissary also of the same paper, was baffled about the “character” of the Labor government when it came to committing itself to the Middle East.  The Albanese government should have been more bloodthirsty in its backing of Israel’s war against Hamas.  It dared back, along with 152 other UN member states, “an Arab nation resolution calling for ‘an immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ – a resolution, given its wording, that was manifestly pro-Palestinian.”

What struck Kelly as odd, suggesting the glaring limits of his understanding of foreign relations, was that Australia did not commit to the coalition to protect shipping through the Red Sea because it does not have the naval capability to do so.  But armchair pundits always secretly crave blood, especially when shed by others.  And to have members of the RAN butchered on inadequate platforms was no excuse not to send them to a conflict.

Aspects of Sheridan’s remarks are correct: Australian inadequacy, the fear of its own shadow.  The conclusions drawn by Sheridan are, however, waffling in their nonsense.  It is precisely such a fear that has led the naval and military establishment fall for the notion that Canberra needs nuclear-propelled boats to combat the spectre of a Yellow-Red Satan to the north.  With a good degree of imbecility, an enemy has been needlessly created.

The result is that Australian insecurity has only been boosted.  Hence more military contracts that entwine, even further, the Australian military with the US Armed Forces.  Or more agreements to share military technology that give Washington a free hand in controlling the way it is shared.  In history, Albanese’s refusal to commit the RAN to the Red Sea will be seen as a sound one.  His great sin will be the uncritical capitulation of his country to US interests in the Indo-Pacific.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

Contrasting Strategies of the US and China

Prospects for Peace and Solving Global Problems

by Roger D. Harris / December 26th, 2023

Xi Jinping: “It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other… the planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.”  

Joe Biden: “We will not leave our future vulnerable to the whims of those who do not share our vision.”

In the latest salvo preparing the US for confrontation with China, Nicholas Burns flat out said, “I don’t feel optimistic about the future of US-China relations.” Burns should know. He is Washington’s ambassador to Beijing.

The US stance on bilateral relations with China, according to Burns, is one of “strategic competition in the coming decades… vying for global power as well as regional power.” Indeed, the US is preparing for war with China. High-ranking US Airforce General Mike Minihan foresees war as early as 2025.

This contrasts with the Chinese approach of cooperation for mutual benefit to solve the most pressing global problems. In short, each country’s leadership presents different paradigms of relations. The Chinese strategy is compatible with a socialist mode of collaboration and community. The US construct reflects a capitalist fundamentalism of competitive social relas.

Which paradigm may prevail is discussed below based on observations made in China on a recent US Peace Council delegation where we met with our counterpart, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament.

 View from Beijing

The Chinese view, based on what they call “Xi Jinping Thought,” is that the US-China association as the most important bilateral relationship in the world. As Chinese President Xi Jinping has explained: “How China and the US get along will determine the future of humanity.”  This view is predicated on the acceptance of a high degree of integration between the two countries’ economies. They see this “entwining” as something to be promoted because both countries stand to benefit from each other’s development.

Overarching the bilateral relationship from the Chinese perspective is a stance of friendly cooperative relations. A “common prosperity,” they believe, can be built on three principles. First is mutual respect. A critical aspect of that pillar of mutual relations is not crossing the red lines of either of the two global powers. Second is peaceful coexistence. This entails a commitment to manage disagreements through communications and dialogue. And third is win-win cooperation. For example, increased trade with China boosted the annual purchasing power for US households.

That the US and China occupy such dominant positions in the world entails concomitant responsibilities. According to the Chinese, major countries have major responsibilities to humanity. They point out that global problems, such as climate change, cannot be solved without US-China cooperation. Indeed, the US and China together contribute to 40% of the planet’s current greenhouse gas emissions.

Beijing contrasts their posture with what they explicitly criticize as the Biden administration’s “zero-sum mentality.” In a zero-sum game, one player’s gain is equivalent to the other’s loss. This differs from the Chinese vision of “win-win” relations based on cooperation for mutual benefit. The Chinese take exception to the US definition of bilateral relations as one of antagonistic “strategic” competition.

Biden-Xi faceoff

The opposing paradigms were displayed at the APEC summit in San Francisco on November 15, where the two world leaders met face-to-face for the first time in two years. We do not know what was discussed in the closed-door meeting. But in a press conference afterwards, US President Joe Biden said of the person he had just spent four hours: “Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours.”

Even neo-con US Secretary of State Antony Blinken winced at the press conference. His grimace was captured in a video that went viral.

Later that day, Chinese President Xi calmly instructed, as if responding to Biden’s indiscretion, “It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other.” Peaceful coexistence for the Chinese necessitates a tolerance and acceptance of different social systems and modes of being. Xi further commented, “the planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.”

Fortune acknowledged that Xi offered a vision different from what it characterized as Biden’s “winner-take-all” mentality. The business magazine noted that Biden has continued Trump’s tariffs on some Chinese products while tightening export controls and investments in high-tech areas such as advanced chips.

Thinking through the unthinkable

It is not an accident of geography that China is surrounded by a ring of some 400 US military bases. Biden has strengthened (1) the Quad military alliance with India, Australia, and Japan originally initiated in 2007, (2) the AUKUS security pact with the UK and Australia founded in 2021, and (3) the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing with UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada dating back to the beginning of the first Cold War, while forging (4) a new mini NATO alliance with Japan and South Korea last August.

Although the Chinese have no bases in North America, a Chinese “spy balloon” that strayed over “American skies” a year ago posed an “unprecedented challenge,” according to the Pentagon. A study by the semi-governmental RAND Corporation provides further insight into the official US posture. Commissioned by the US Army, the title of the study says it all: “War with China – thinking through the unthinkable.” The best minds that money can buy were paid by the US taxpayers to game Armageddon.

Starting from the official US national security doctrine of “full spectrum dominance,” the analysts at RAND played out various US war scenarios with China. The outcome, they predicted, would be disastrous to both sides. However, based on the morality expressed on a bumper sticker I saw in my neighborhood, “he who ends up with the most toys wins,” the US would come out ahead.

Yes, the US would prevail according to RAND. But the report also contained a caveat…if such a war is contained. That is, if other countries do not join the melee and if it does not go nuclear, the conflict might be contained.

The military strategists warn that the chances of containment, however, become progressively fleeting as a conflict progresses. Once initiated, such a conflict is increasingly subject to unintended consequences for the protagonists. Further, they note that there is a tremendous military advantage for one side or the other to strike first.

Contest for the future of our world

In his official National Security Strategy, Joe Biden described “the contest for the future of our world.” According to the US president, “our world is at an inflection point.” He continued, “my administration will seize this decisive decade to…outmaneuver our geopolitical competitors,” meaning foremost China.

Biden admonished: “We will not leave our future vulnerable to the whims of those who do not share our vision.” It’s either my way or the highway, for the imperial POTUS.

Biden then promised to impose “American leadership” – meaning domination, because no one voted him planetary potentate – “around the world.” US world leadership is already manifest in the most mass shootings, the highest national debt, and the largest incarcerated population. The US currently leads the world in the sale of military equipment, military expenditures, and foreign military bases.

Whistling in the dark, Biden concluded, “our economy is dynamic.” In fact, the US economy is dominated by the non-productive FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) sectors, while China has become the “workshop of the world.”  Statista estimates that China will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2030.

In contrast, China’s belt and road initiative (BRI) is a global infrastructure development program which has invested in over 150 countries. No wonder Biden fears that the Chinese alternative in his own words “tilts the global playing field to its benefit.”

The alternative posed by China

Unlike the West, whose wealth is based on colonial relations, China elevated 800 million out of poverty without resorting to imperial wars. But is China, guided by Xi Jinping’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” indeed socialist? A range of opinions exist within the self-identified socialist left depending on the litmus test applied.

For some, socialism does not exist in China or for that matter anywhere else, past or present. For them, socialism is an ideal that has yet to be realized. Others uphold China under Mao Zedong but not under the subsequent Deng Xiaoping revision. At the other end of the spectrum are proponents of China having already achieved socialism. In between, reflecting China’s mixed economy with state-owned and private enterprises, are various shades seeing China in transition between socialism and capitalism. For some, the transition is advancing; for others, it is regressing.

The Chinese leadership’s view is that the material conditions necessary for the full realization of socialism are still in the process of being developed.

This modest paper will not resolve the question of whether China is socialist, which ultimately will be one for history to decide. It is clear, however, that the Chinese paradigm of global cooperation is counterposed to the US’s zero-sum competition. If not precisely socialist, China at least offers a paradigm that does not preclude a socialist future. Importantly, in this contentious geopolitical climate, China and by extension the Global South pose a countervailing space from US imperial hegemony.

The Chinese appear cognizant of the Yankee’s “make war, not peace” attitude, but the 4000-year-young civilization seems self-assured that the rationality of “win-win” peaceful development will prevail. From what I saw on my visit, they confidently exude the patience of maturity and the solid vitality of youth.

Roger D. Harris is with the human rights organization Task Force on the Americas, founded in 1985 and is on the executive committee of the US Peace Council Read other articles by Roger D..